- The parties may be divorced, but that isn’t preventing the University of Kentucky and former basketball coach Billy Gillispie from going after one another with vitriol. Gillespie was fired after only two seasons, mostly because UK has completely unrealistic, insane expectations that it’s men’s basketball program will reach the Final Four every year and Gillispie failed to deliver anything close to that sort of performance in his two-year tenure. He was axed, John Calipari was brought in and now Gillispie is going after the money he claims that the school owes him under the terms of his contract. Gillispie filed his claim Wednesday in Dallas, asking for at least $6 million in pay, punitive damages, attorneys' fees and court costs. It took the university all of one day to fire back, filing a countersuit Thursday in Franklin Circuit Court in Kentucky, which the school contends is the proper venue for any litigation involving the coach's former employment. Thee debate centers on whether or not Gillispie was ever formally under contract at UK. Seems bizarre, given that he was there two years and in no other job would someone work for two years without ever actually signing a contract. But the university contends that Gillispie never signed a formal contract but was working under a memorandum of understanding when he was fired after last season. The contract he either signed or was to sign, depending on whose story you buy, contained a buyout clause that Gillispie claims is binding. That would require the school to pay him $1.5 million for four of five years left on his contract. Additionally, his attorney maintains that there was a contract and now UK needs to own up to its end of that deal. "There's a public misconception that Coach Gillispie did not sign a contract with the University of Kentucky athletic association," Demetrios Anaipakos said. "He absolutely did. They drafted it. He signed it. They signed it and their board approved it. Whether you're in Kentucky or Texas, a deal is a deal.” I can find a lot of fault on both sides here, both in Gillispie for not signing the official contract (what were you waiting for, Bill?) and the university for its absurd expectations for its basketball coaches and refusal to honor the terms of whatever sort of agreement it did sign. Just an all-around ugly situation and one that does nothing to improve the image of a Kentucky basketball program that is a shell of its former self……..
- Score one for love. Father Alberto Cutie, the internationally known Catholic priest who admitted having a romantic affair and breaking his vow of celibacy, is jumping ship from the Catholic Church to join the Episcopal Church to be with the woman he loves. “I will always love the Catholic Church and all its members," he said Thursday. "But I want to start today by going into a new family. Here before this community where I have chosen to serve and where I live, I am going to continue to proclaim the word of God and my love for God.” He was welcome into the Episcopal fold at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Miami, Florida, where will pursue the priesthood in the Episcopalian faith. It’s too bad that John C. Favalora, archbishop of the Catholic Church's Miami archdiocese, where Cutie served, couldn’t have taken the high road on this one and let Cutie go without firing off a few final shots to snipe his old buddy in the back as he left. “Father Cutie's actions have caused grave scandal within the Catholic Church, harmed the Archdiocese of Miami -- especially our priests -- and led to division within the ecumenical community and the community at large," Favalora said in a written statement. "Today's announcement only deepens those wounds.” Now is that any way to talk about a guy who is often called "Father Oprah" because of the advice he's given in Spanish-language media? Take it down a notch, Favarola. How about some love, compassion and understanding? Yes, Cutie caused an uproar when photographs of him embracing a bathing-suit-clad woman emerged this month in the pages of TV Notas magazine. He’s admitted to having a two-year relationship with the woman, but Cutie insists that this is a relationship of substance and something he is willing to make huge sacrifices for. The Catholic Church got what it wanted when Cutie was removed from his duties at St. Francis De Sales Catholic Church in Miami Beach and ripped from the airwaves of the Radio Paz and Radio Peace Networks. Ideally, Favarola would just let Cutie go without having to attack him on his way out the door. Let the guy go to the Church of the Resurrection in Biscayne Park, where Cutie is headed, and allow him to begin rebuilding a struggling church there rather than engage in petty sniping. Step your game up, Archbishop Favarola……
- Never have I been more behind a movement than I am with the idea from the American Medical Association Alliance to drop an R rating on any movie with smoking scenes. I find it extremely offensive that smoking in youth-rated movies has not declined despite a pledge two years ago by Hollywood studios to encourage producers to show less "gratuitous smoking.” And while there is no one central cause for kids who start smoking, the fact is that seeing from their favorite stars on the big screen certainly doesn’t help stamp out smoking. “Research has shown that one-third to one-half of all young smokers in the United States can be attributed to smoking these youth see in movies," said Dr. Jonathan Fielding, head of the Los Angeles County Public Health Department. Fielding went on to cite another study that "found that adolescents whose favorite movie stars smoked on screen are significantly more likely to be smokers themselves and to have a more accepting attitude toward smoking.” Good enough for me, I’m sold. If Fielding and his peeps want to drop an R rating on any movie with smoking in it, that’s cool. If they say the current system of upgrading the rating of films with smoking in them isn’t working, I see no need to argue with them. The Motion Picture Association of America, which ratings for U.S. films, claims it factors smoking into its decisions. To quote Ron Burgundy, I don’t believe you. If putting an R rating on a smoking movie means no one under the age of 17 can (theoretically) see it without a parent or guardian, so be it. The fewer people that see smoking in any medium, the better. No one’s life is made better by smoking, not even the leather-faced, coughing, hacking, wheezing, black-lunged losers who choke down a pack or two of cancer sticks a day. They may think their lives are better, but they are wrong. They make everyone around them miserable any time they smoke and our lives are exponentially better the more places we can eliminate smoking from. So when the AMAA says it wants an R rating for any movie with so much as one smoking scene in it, I salute them and jump on board with both feet. I’m getting on this bandwagon early, but I don’t mind making space for the rest of you to cram on board…….
- How do I know that hockey is irrelevant in these here United States? Because if the sport mattered at all to Americans, NBC wouldn’t be bumping the NHL’s premier event of the season, the Stanley Cup Finals, from its airwaves in favor of five straight nights of the reality series I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here! I don’t care if the uber-hot Torrie Wilson is a part of the show, if anyone in the U.S. of A cared about the sport I lovingly call soccer on ice, NBC would not a) be forcing the NHL to play two games in two nights over the weekend to get those games aired on the network and b) ripping the league’s championship series in favor of a reality TV show. I realize that reality series slamming famous people in unusual spots is becoming trendy (see I Get That A Lot, which put famous people in ordinary settings and had them lie about being their famous selves) in the reality TV world, but I don’t see Fox telling Major League Baseball to take the World Series to TBS, ABC letting the NBA know that the NBA Finals will have to be shown on ABC Family or CBS hitting the NFL with a notice that the Super Bowl will have to air on Nickelodeon. I realize some hockey fans will read this and take offense, but hopefully with the decision by NBC and not with what I’m saying. I’m merely commenting on the obvious, that when a television network treats your sport’s championship series with such utter disregard and indifference, it’s a definite sign that people just don’t care about your sport or league……
- This is going downhill quickly. While awaiting sentencing for his murder conviction, music producer Phil Spector wigged (pun intended) out because he wasn’t allowed to keep his favorite hairpiece on in the pen. He was a freaking basket case after spending just a few days in lock up, so how do you think it’s going to go for him now that he’s been sentenced to the maximum sentence of 19 years to life for the murder six years ago of actress Lana Clarkson? Allow me to do the math for you: Spector, 69, would be 88 before he would be eligible for parole. He’s spending nearly two decades in prison and for someone his age, that’s basically a life sentence. Heck, Spector looked near death Friday as he sat slumped and stone-faced throughout his sentencing by Judge Larry Paul Fidler. Fidler also denied a motion for a new trial by defense attorney Doron Weinberg, who said he would file an appeal. “The evidence did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he is guilty for the simple reason [that] he did not kill Lana Clarkson,” Weinberg said. Well, I suppose you’re entitled to an appeal, D. “Obviously, he's not very happy," Spector's wife, Rachelle, said after the hearing. "I'm going to stand by him and get him out of that awful place so he can come home where he belongs.” Umm, no you’re not. You can stand by him all you want, but you’re going to be standing beside inmate #495011 as he spends the rest of his life in prison. You’ll also be standing besides his coffin when he dies in prison and the authorities turn his body over to you for burial. Nobody feels bad for Spector because we’ve seen much of the evidence against him and are fairly certain that P. Spector did indeed kill Clarkson in the foyer of his Alhambra, California, mansion with a gunshot to the head. The jurors surely were convinced of his guilty after deliberating for 30 hours in October and announcing a guilty verdict on the second-degree murder charge. Fidler even gave them the opportunity consider the lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter, but they chose not to. Not only that, this was Spector’s second trial on the murder charge, with his first murder trial in 2007 ending in a mistrial as jurors said they couldn't reach a verdict after 15 days of deliberations. For someone with two firearms-related convictions on his record, a fatal shooting isn’t something that seems too far-fetched for Spector. His own driver testified against him, claiming he heard a gunshot and Spector exclaim, “I think I killed someone.” Not exactly the end result you would have thought of for someone who was the producer for No. 1 hits like the Ronettes' "Be My Baby,” the Righteous Brothers' "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'” and the legendary Beatles’ album “Let It Be.” Enjoy the hole, Phil, because something tells me you’re exactly where you belong…….
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