Petrino

On very cold mornings like the last few have been, I tend to run out to the driveway without my coat and start the car.  I then hustle back into the house, drink some coffee, gather my paraphernalia and--when I figure the car is sufficiently toasty and I am in appropriate winter wear--make my way down the driveway into the car.  Today I went through this ritual with a wrinkle. After I started the car, I went looking for something in my gym bag and figured I could extract it quickly.  Couldn't find it.  The car was running, blowing cold air into my face. It was thirteen degrees tops outside, and I was yanking out athletic socks and frozen tee shirts from the bag looking for my swimming goggles while growing icicles on various parts of my body.  Finally I gave up and grabbed the entire bag and ran--half frozen now myself--back into the house, intent on continuing the excavation of my gym bag in the relatively warm kitchen.

Typically on my drive into work I listen to an all news station which provides--on the threes-a report of traffic patterns. Why I do this is a mystery--since every day the report as it pertains to my beat is precisely the same.  Traffic is backed up from the tolls to the market--exactly the first few miles of my journey.  I think often that the guy, allegedly in a helicopter reporting the traffic flow, is in bed just saying what he said the day before. Nearly every day "traffic on the pike is backed up from the tolls to the market." I imagine the guy spewing this in his pajamas.

My ride home is rarely during rush hour so I move the station to a sports station or listen to a cd.  Last night, apparently, I had been listening to espn as I pulled back into the driveway.

This all is preamble.

This morning after I started the car and went foraging through tee shirts, bathing suits, sneakers, athletic socks, jars of "icy hot"--in pursuit of swimming goggles I overhear radio chatter above my chattering gums about Bobby Petrino.

The BCS can get me riled up as readers of my blog will note. However, not much gets my goat more than pontificating hypocrites opining about others' private behaviors.  I don't kid myself into thinking that readers of my blogs recall them, but one of my more popular entries was called, Twisted Sinews of thy Heart, about Tiger Woods. I can see the numbers of people who read blogs and for reasons that likely relate less to my philosophy and more to the fact that the title is from a famous poem, there is a lot of traffic to that blog.  My comments this morning will be similar.

The infuriating chatter (while I was concurrently aggravated seeking my goggles in weather) was about the story about Bobby Petrino's pending hire as the coach of the Louisville Cardinals.  Petrino had ignominiously been fired from a previous job because he was discovered to be having an affair.  Now the espn experts were conversing about whether it was appropriate to hire Petrino for this new job given his past and, also, whether athletes may be reluctant to attend the university because of Petrino's activities.

Did this guy conspire to shut down the government and cost taxpayers billions of dollars? Did he lie to the country about bogus weapons of mass destruction in a foreign country in order to induce parents to send their kids to their deaths? Did he irresponsibly run banks into the ground costing people their life savings in 2008 when all hell broke loose on the stock market? Did he advocate for open purchasing of automatic weapons the morning after the massacre at Newtown?

No. He had consensual sex outside of marriage.  If you want to excoriate coaches start with those who lie to recruits or berate players or are indifferent to the safety and education of the student-athletes.

There are only a few people who are aware of the nuances of the Petrino situation.  Petrino, his spouse, and his lover.  Others just do not know.

We are embarrassingly immature when it comes to matters of intimacy.  And two-faced. People (go figure) enjoy sex.  And people have sex.  It's as predictable as rush hour traffic patterns. And who people have sex with--as long as it is consensual--is the business of only those people who are involved.  You want to make Petrino a pariah because he violated his marital vows, fine--as long as you are the spouse.