Kentucky Football: The cost of winning

He has taken a shot across the bow of the good ship Stoops. I suppose it is to be expected since the "Curious Urinal" is based in Louisville, a town in which the local media is under the thumb of the University of Louisville's athletic department.

I wasn't going to address the Lloyd Tubman incident because I think you have to let things take their course. That is until I read Mr. H's article. I'm using Mr. H because Himmelsbach is too long of a word for me to keep typing over and over. I guess I could continuously cut and paste, but I don't feel it is worth the effort. Call this lazy journalism, but I am proud to say I don't call myself a journalist. I am a lowly blogger who is an unabashed Kentucky fan. On the other hand, Mr. H hides behind the cloak of the term "journalist" which supposedly means he is fair-minded and only reports the news which means his commentary is therefore fair-minded as well. Are your eyes rolling yet?

His shot at Stoops is disingenuous to say the least. There is an old saying, "the fox smells his own hole." You've probably heard it before as it pertains to a proper response to one passing gas and blaming it on others. In my mind this fits the bill for Mr. H's condemnation of the way Mark Stoops handles team discipline.

The headline: UK arrest should concern Mark Stoops (Click to Read)

Wow! You would think that the arrest of one of his players wasn't of any concern for the Wildcats coach. That coming from a man and a media outlet who is fearful of the wrath of Tom Jurich and the University of Louisville. I didn't realize that Mark Stoops isn't concerned about Tubman's arrest until I read Mr. H's article.  I'm not sure why Mr. H chose the words of our coach to mean "all parties" meant that he was only concerned with Tubman and his family and was therefore insensitive to Tubman's accuser. Personally, I take "all parties" to mean "all parties," which would include the alleged victim. That's just me, I guess.

He moves on by taking on the coach's handling of the four players from last week's air gun incident. He thinks all four were reinstated too soon. Does he now?  He wonders if a coach with a "less pristine past had over a ten day span, has his players force a campus-wide lockdown for firing weapons on campus, followed by another player being charged with first degree rape." I wish he would explain how the two incidents are connected. He attempts to do that by talking about prevention.

Next he goes on to talk about Jason Hatcher (legal action dismissed) and then about DeMarco Robinson's  charges last year (which were dropped), commenting how Robinson is now a starter. He also goes on to mention Ashely Lowery's legal problems (yet to be arraigned) and how Stoops is letting him play. No mention passes of other player suspensions, or other players flat-out dismissed for disciplinary reasons.

Somehow, all these incidents are connected and are indications that oversight is weak at the University of Kentucky. What a bunch of horse crap. All this is coming from one who only has to look across town for weak oversight. His favored school has retained a known philanderer for its basketball program and followed that up by hiring a known philanderer as its football coach. Then, there is the reputation of "Second Chance U." Rather than recruiting well, his favored school takes those who have been dismissed from other schools for such things as assault and thievery in order to build a winning football program. If you'll recall, there was the commitment who was charged with sexually assaulting his cousin or niece (I can't remember which) over a period of years. There was silence from the school until the public began to complain. Then, and only then, was the offer withdrawn.

Where, I wonder, was all the indignation about these things? He is, however, entitled to his opinion, but I think Mr. Himmelsbach needs to get off his high horse and remember that "the fox smells his own hole."