As Mike Haywood Falls, Pitt Proves It Stands for Something
Filed under: Pittsburgh, Big East, Coaching, Police Blotter
As was pointed out here a few weeks ago, the college football hierarchy doesn’t seem to stand for much, at least not for commitment, or principle, or accountability, or authority figures setting the kind of examples colleges should be setting.
The University of Pittsburgh might be proving that theory wrong.
That’s too bad for Mike Haywood right now — but then again, it might not be bad at all for him in the long run. Generations of coaches in every sport have justified their punishment for misbehaving players, after all. If a coach can’t justify his own punishment the same way, then what good is he?
And what good is an institute of higher learning if its standards for the people it puts in charge of its young charges are kept anything but high?
Haywood is still innocent until proven guilty by the criminal justice system, so on his arrest on New Year’s Eve in South Bend, Ind., on domestic battery charges, he can’t be judged here. But Pitt has every right to judge him. It is fully entitled to. Most important, it’s obligated to.
And if the young, fast-rising coach Pitt just hired two weeks ago really believes — as he told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review Saturday night — that his getting fired now “isn’t fair,” he might have as myopic a view of what college sports are supposed to be about as his superiors in the game generally do.
Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments