Least Cool Person of 2009-2010 Tournament: Steve Kragthorpe vs. Karen Sypher
by Mike Rutherford on Jul 19, 2010 10:57 AM EDT
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Print2. Steve Kragthorpe
Rap Sheet:
--First current or former member of the U of L athletic family to participate in the tournament.
--"Led" Louisville to a 4-8 season.
--Missed the postseason for the third straight year.
--Constantly looked and sounded confused while his team constantly looked and sounded both confused and apathetic.
--Spoke in hollow and infuriating cliches.
--Called being fired from Louisville "a great blessing" during an interview for a story about his faith.
--Taped the most anger-inducing Kroger commercial of all-time.
3. Karen Sypher
Rap Sheet:
--Continued her claims of rape and other wrong doings done by Rick Pitino and company.
--Went against her best interests and the advice of her attorneys by refusing to stay away from the media.
--Claimed she was too emotionally scarred to leave her house despite frequently being seen in public, often times appeasing multiple picture requests.
--Is currently in the preliminary stages of her extortion trial.
--Is almost universally considered insane.
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You know its been a bad year for the Cards
when this matchup is just a semifinal showdown.
Man its been a shitty run for us.
yeah, I had no clue 2004-2005
was about as good as it gets
Not me
In the context of a 1 year period (Aug 09 – July 10) we expected Krag to fail and get fired.
He did us a favor by underperforming yet again, making it that much easier for Jurich to appease the fanbase by sacking him. During the UK game there was a moment in the 3rd or 4th quater when I really thought a bowl game could be possible if the QB situation was figured out. Not sure what Jurich would’ve done if UL went bowling last season.
by UL is my hot hot sex on Jul 19, 2010 2:09 PM EDT up reply actions
However, he was the lone "offensive genius" last year
No more Brohm’s or offensive coordinators to blame the horrible, horrible play calling. He had his worst record the last year too…
IMO, just because he did the same things as he the two years before, it doesn’t make that next year any more acceptable.
I agree it's not acceptable
but it was widely expected. Karen Sypher’s extortion attempt was absolutely unexpected and probably did more damage to UL MBB than we’ll ever care to admit/realize.
by UL is my hot hot sex on Jul 19, 2010 10:30 PM EDT up reply actions
Easy decision for me
Because I sat through the whole Syracuse game… I was never expecting such a low scoring offense the entire season… it got worse and worse.
Have you SEEN that Kroger commercial?!?
No question!
j/k j/k
by Remote Cardinal on Jul 19, 2010 2:37 PM EDT up reply actions
Sypher may be crazy but Pitino did have a little party time with her. He obviously should have picked a better party partner.
That other guy on the other hand, there are no words.
Unless Sypher was directly involved with the elite 8 debacle i could care less about what goes on with her. A program destroyer v. a possibly crazy strange? I know my choice.
They gone have to stop sleeping on me one day.. I gotta be one of the best
About 3 hours ago by Eric Wright Cleveland Browns – Cornerback
I understand, as a big daddy come and take my spot type of demeanor?
by mooncamping on May 14, 2010 7:24 AM EDT
I have a hard time blaming people for their obvious mental handicaps.
Incompetence, on the other hand, there is no excuse for. And Krag was the King of Incompetence.
Besides, what Krag did to the reputation of Louisville football is far worse than what Sypher did, ultimately.
I'm picking
Ineptitude over mental illness. Sypher can’t help herself because she’s clinicly insane. Krag has been a coach long enough but is still that inept. Sypher did her thing but Coach P is still here and the basketball program is still chugging along. The football program, however, that’s a different story…
Toughey
Krag was an inept, incompetent fool who single-handedly destroyed our football program. But, because my love for basketball edges football by a nose, Sypher takes it for me. The stink of this story has damaged UofL basketball more than people realize, and certainly more than anyone involved likes to let on.
And someone brought up the 2008-09 tournament and how the Sypher story about to explode disrupted everything. I agree. We went from toying with opponents to looking absolutely lost against Michigan St. They weren’t that good. That could’ve been our moment.
The program will be fine with the new arena and Pitino committed to reshaping our brand. But, I think this past year as well as that big recruiting class we were supposed to have next year were both sabotaged to a degree by the Sypher story. We like to slam Calipari (and for good reason), but I don’t think he wouldn’t have been able to raid that incoming group so easily had this thing not been in the air.
They both suck (horribly). They both held our programs up for money in one way or another, but in a triple OT finish, Sypher edges out Krag for least cool in my book.
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MSU was pretty good and Izzo is definitely that good. MSU had a game plan against us and executed it and we failed to make any adjustments until it was too late and by that time MSU had the confidence and the momentum.
They gone have to stop sleeping on me one day.. I gotta be one of the best
About 3 hours ago by Eric Wright Cleveland Browns – Cornerback
I understand, as a big daddy come and take my spot type of demeanor?
by mooncamping on May 14, 2010 7:24 AM EDT
Michigan State ended up in the championship game.
And they have Izzo. They were pretty good. They just play boring basketball by design.
True, but
we never should’ve withered and died so easily. The game’s outcome was never in doubt for most of the 2nd half.
Pitino himself admitted it disrupted the tournament. Mich St were good, but we just looked unprepared in that game. Our performance was so bizarre there were even rumors of point-shaving by T-Will. People just couldn’t figure it out.
Then, the sex-scandal story broke.
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One more thing....
Pitino must’ve been crazy drunk that night. Jesus Christ, that bitch is foul.
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the bb team still made the tournament. granted we underperformed virtually all season, but we made the big dance. sypher’s influence- maybe we get a 6 seed instead of a 9 and make it to the second round. maybe.
the fb team however was maddeningly inconsistent throughout the year. some games were close DEspite hwsnbn instead of INspite him. i would argue that his decisions during the games probably cost us 3-4 wins last year, especially late in games. that tells me that the talent on this team was capable of winning games and was held back pretty much by the idiot in charge.
in terms of who had the greatest effect on the season, there is no question. i don’t think the bb season changes much had sypher not happened, but there is no doubt the fb season would have been totally different had hwsnbn not been the head cardinal.
I think the approximate 65-35 split for HWSNBN
reflects roughly the percentage of football-first vs. basketball-first fans who frequent this site. Not that there aren’t crossovers (I am one myself) but I think they even out in the long run. My impression has long been that there seems to be stronger interest in football than basketball here.
For me, the KS sideshow has been just that – more of a distraction than anything directly affecting the game. I am not convinced it had any discernible impact on recruiting or on our play. SK, on the other hand, personally set the football program back a decade. And then he blamed the fans, the media, the Athletic Department and the University for his shortcomings. A pox on both their houses, I guess, but especially his.
I’m actually a bb fan first but hwsnbn is so inept and destructive it seemed quite obvious to me.
by jcarti01 on Jul 19, 2010 8:08 PM EDT via mobile up reply actions
Krag set us back 10 years!
KS is a scratch on the UofL paint job… no question in my opinion.
by bjack357 on Jul 19, 2010 10:07 PM EDT via mobile up reply actions
yeah but in the context of one year (being last year)
he didn’t really set us back much further than he already had in the previous 2 yrs. The permanent damage was done, he met our expectations and he did us a favor by not getting to a bowl last year which helped make Jurich’s decision to fire him a lot easier.
The fact he took millions of dollars with him after he was fired and said he deserved every penny is something I can’t defend however. That is hard to swallow.
/Karen Sypher joke
by UL is my hot hot sex on Jul 19, 2010 10:38 PM EDT up reply actions
Sorry my phone just decided to post without me finishing.
Whether or not I was expecting last season’s outcome didn’t make it easier to watch. For the first time ever I just didn’t care much about the games, and I’ll never forgive him for that. Not to mention the record 5 game losing streak in 07 after getting everybody’s hopes up with a 5-2 record and win against USF. Or the complete breakdown of a BCS-caliber team.
I just felt like three seasons of frustration came to a completely maddening, 4 month storm last year that just sucked.
by CARD_G6 on Jul 20, 2010 7:22 PM EDT via mobile up reply actions
UL is my hot... i agree
a coach like kragthorpe doesn’t deserve what he got patd and really really didn’t earn it
"UK isn't a choice, you're born bleeding blue"
by kentuckywild on Jul 20, 2010 8:52 PM EDT up reply actions
Oh yeah.
Somehow I completely forgot about going 0-3 against UK (and WVU?) and 1-2 against Syracuse and Cincy.
I can't argue with your reasoning
I didn’t have to endure Krags or Sypher while living in Louisville and I’m obviously in the minority w/ the voting.
by UL is my hot hot sex on Jul 21, 2010 1:23 AM EDT up reply actions
I'm in the same boat (out of towner)
and I voted Krags.
I heard about, knew details about and thought the Pitino family had all settled the Sypher thing way back when it happened. There were plenty of rumors on campus back then about the whole thing and I though it was over. When it came back up and broke nationally, I’d get a few questions or comments about it, but nearly 90% of people could give a crap about our coach’s off-the-court issues.
Krags on the otherhand, he destroyed our program, our brand; not just for us, but for the entire country. I have a bunch of Big 10 friends out here and they all had no clue it was Krags that destroyed us. They thought it was just the absence of Petrino. Nothing could be further from the truth.
So in terms of a SPORTS-ONLY view, I think Krags did more damage.
by Remote Cardinal on Jul 21, 2010 1:58 PM EDT up reply actions
Sypher's crazy, but...
it’s still Coach P’s fault/behavior that have caused her to be relevant to UofL athletics.
Kragthorpe took the job, turned out to not be very good at said job, proceeded to throw out pathetic excuse after pathetic excuse to rationalize his poor perfomance and finally departed in a less than graceful fashion.
In summary, Sypher can’t help that she’s loony bin insane, while Kragthorpe has no one but himself to blame for his immense suckage.
You need to get that cursed picture of Krags off the top of the homepage.
Put a picture of Charlie up to break the spell.
At least Bob Dole’s incompetence was really just endearing senility.
by SpeedStudent on Jul 20, 2010 1:59 PM EDT up reply actions
very close, but look at intent
In a court of law, intent is everything. HWSNBN was incompetent, but not malicious. Kind of like a reckless homicide.
Sypher had malice aforethought. Definitely premeditated.
Wow, it has been a crappy 3 years, if we can get the stink off from those two we should be golden.
We can never fully prove intent to be uncool.
But my assertion is that SK conscientiously, and with malice of forethought, made a series of uncool decisions which lead to the near destruction of the University of Louisville football program. What type of uncool decisions am I talking about? Am I talking about his staffing decisions? No, that was just incompetence. Am I talking about his play calling decisions? No, that was just incompetence. Am I talking about his public relations decisions? No, that was just incompetence. I am talking about two specific decisions: His decision not to resign, and his decision to keep all the buyout money.
You may be saying, What? You expect a college football coach to resign and give back money because he was incompetent? He didn’t do anything illegal.
SO WHAT! This isn’t a court of law, this is a court of cool or uncool, and one test you can do to determine if something is uncool is to ask yourself, “Will I be able to look at myself in the mirror later and say I did it for the right reasons.” I for one do not believe that SK is convincing enough to even fool himself into believing that he stayed on the job because he thought he could succeed. After the first year, it was obvious he could not succeed, and that he was wasting the University’s money and causing pain and sadness to thousands of people. Yet, he stayed, I believe, knowing he was doomed to fail, just waiting for the axe to fall, leaving the dirty work of firing him to be done by Jurich whenever he had finally had enough.
You could try to convince me that it would have been uncool to resign, that it would have been like quitting, and quitting is uncool. You could try, but you would not succeed. Stepping aside when a cause is hopeless so that another who is more fit can success is neither uncool or unmanly, as long as you continue to take up other challenges and continue to pursue success.
…and, as others have pointed out, KS is insane. Therefore she’s unfit to stand trial.
by sarasota-card on Jul 21, 2010 3:13 PM EDT up reply actions
from an outsiders view
its gotta be kragthorpe… sypher was the more shocking one but after kragthorpe was handed a bcs team and barely made 500 i knew louisville was in trouble
"UK isn't a choice, you're born bleeding blue"
i was .. one thing pitino always
stressed outside of sports was family… i was shocked twice by him.. one was cheating on his wife. second was when i seen the chick…lol.. damn he must of been sauced out his mind
"UK isn't a choice, you're born bleeding blue"
by kentuckywild on Jul 21, 2010 6:31 PM EDT up reply actions
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