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Opinion: Bruce Pearl's rap sheet is too long to become the next Louisville coach


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Stop it. Stop it now. Stop the silliness about Bruce Pearl leaving No. 1 Auburn for Louisville basketball.

It’s not happening. Nor should it.

No matter how high Pearl’s team is ranked, no matter how often he beats Kentucky, and though he is fun and charming and plays an entertaining brand of basketball, Pearl has broken too many rules and told too many lies to be considered as a potential coach by a school with a protracted compliance problem.

“He’s a non-starter,” former Louisville trustee Bill Stone said Thursday. “It wouldn’t get to first base. It wouldn’t get out of the batter’s box.”

Nevertheless, people persist. In separate conversations within the space of five minutes last Saturday, two men with strong ties to the Louisville program volunteered that Pearl was their choice to replace Chris Mack.

Thursday morning, Pearl’s candidacy was being promoted on ESPN 680 radio show while Auburn Live was quoting unnamed sources to the effect that, “Louisville has already made it known to Pearl’s camp that the Auburn head coach is a wanted man.”

Though the Auburn Live report reads as if it were written by Pearl’s agent, it is sure to fuel the Pearl-to-Louisville lobby.

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Stop it. Stop it now.

Granted, Pearl’s track record is tempting. Three years after leading Auburn to its first Final Four, Pearl’s Tigers are ranked No. 1 nationally by the Associated Press, No. 2 in the coaches’ poll and have won 18 of their 19 games. Furthermore, Pearl’s teams have beaten Kentucky 10 times between Tennessee and Auburn, including four of the last six meetings.

Yet after more than six years of recurring scandal, with one set of sanctions served and another still pending, Louisville must look elsewhere for its next coach. It must distance itself from coaches whose rap sheets portend more trouble and seek a clean start, preferably a squeaky-clean start.

Bruce Pearl does not remotely fit the desired description. More than 30 years ago, Dick Vitale said Pearl had committed “career suicide” as an Iowa assistant by recording a conversation with a recruit he then used to try to implicate a rival school.

Auburn hired him during and despite a three-year NCAA show-cause penalty imposed for lying to investigators about impermissible contact with Tennessee recruits.

Last month, Pearl was suspended for two games for his failures to adequately promote compliance and monitor former assistant Chuck Person, a key figure in the college basketball bribery scandal that has cost Auburn a four-year NCAA probation.

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That Pearl was able to keep his job despite refusing to discuss the matter with Auburn president Steven Leath speaks to the disproportionate power a coach can wield if he wins enough games. That numerous Louisville fans, boosters and talk show types remain willing to overlook Pearl’s scofflaw tendencies speaks to their desperate desire for a quick fix and their amoral attitude toward methodology.

It also reflects badly misplaced priorities. Though Louisville basketball is arguably the school’s most prominent program and has inarguably raised its national profile through sustained success, it is not more important than the university’s reputation and has lately been the leading contributor to negative perceptions about the place.

This needs to change. Unless Louisville is determined to embrace an outlaw image, it has to distance itself from desperados. The basketball program must move past the serial scandals associated with Andre McGee, Katina Powell, Brian Bowen and Dino Gaudio and promote standards of which the institution can be proud.

This starts by eliminating coaching candidates known for cutting corners.

While taking questions after Mack’s separation agreement was announced Wednesday, Louisville’s interim athletic director Josh Heird was asked if a history of NCAA violations would disqualify a coach from consideration. And though Heird did not answer the question directly, his response was revealing.

“I am going to want a coach with the highest level of integrity possible,” he said.

That would be somebody other than Bruce Pearl.

Tim Sullivan: 502-582-4650, tsullivan@courier-journal.com; Twitter: @TimSullivan714