A quick soapbox rant...

Since Kentucky hired John Calipari last April, there have been plenty of critics talking about the gray areas of recruiting that the coach supposedly operates within. Of course, there's only two situations that involved any wrongdoing, once when a player took gifts from an agent (Camby) and another time when a high school kid allegedly cheated on his SAT exam but then was cleared by the NCAA to play basketball (Rose). Both times, John Calipari had nothing to do with it and was cleared by the NCAA. Of course, that hasn't stopped the press from dropping negative remarks about Cal, every chance they get.

One of those talking meatheads is Colin Cowherd of ESPN Radio. He has said nothing positive about UK and Coach Cal and often throws out little remarks here and there about how crooked Cal is and how desperate UK must have been to hire him. Sure, he's entitled to his opinion, but the problem here is that Cowherd is both a.) a moron and b.) a hypocrite. The ESPN host is a west coast homer and loves USC football. Rarely a day passes by, regardless of the time of year, that Cowherd doesn't applaud USC football and their now former head coach Pete Carroll. He has a man sized crush on the coach, which was clear this morning when Cowherd said USC should get another coach "young and good looking like Pete Carroll." For crying out loud... Carroll is 58 years old, has gray hair, and deep wrinkles. He's neither young or good looking.

But that statement just revealed a deeper issue at play. The media all have their darlings, those they champion despite their flaws. Pete Carroll is just one of them. Coach K is another. Meanwhile, the press loves to have villains, and that's why good coaches like John Calipari take the heat and others get the free pass. But the biggest issue I have with the double standard is the coaches that get free passes have done far greater harm to the sport (and our society) than the others. Just read this article to see the kind of junk Pete Carroll has been associated with. Oh, and this one too. Or consider someone like Bobby Knight, a former coach with more scandals in his past than a Chicago politician, yet somehow feels free to publicly bad mouth Calipari for two relatively harmless situations, situations that any coach could find themselves having to deal with at some point in their career.

I said all this to say this... the media is two-faced and I'm tired of it. If you want to bad mouth Calipari, go ahead, just be sure to bad mouth Knight, Carroll, Coach K and all the other coaches that have had missteps along the way. Better yet, why not talk about what's going on between the lines and keep your personal opinions to yourself.

Colin Cowherd especially. If he doesn't talk about Carroll's problems and his timely exit to the NFL, then we all know for sure what we've suspected for years... that Cowherd is a two-faced idiot, and that he should be reigned in by ESPN before he gives them a worse reputation than they already have... if that's possible.