Doing the right thing

Yesterday was a unique day in sports where 1 person said he was sorry for an off the cuff remark and another was fired for lying to his bosses.

In Miami yesterday Marlins manager Ozzie Guillen held an hour long news conference in which he took the blame for a "stupid"--his word--comment praising Cuban Communist leader Fidel Castro.  This is not a freedom of speech issue.  Guillen is free to say what he wants and often does...this is about being sensitive to the people who you are trying to attract to see your team. Ozzie Guillen is the manager of the Miami Marlins.  The team just moved into a nice new ballpark near Little Havana in downtown Miami.  The Marlins need to attract the large Cuban and Latino community in South Florida if they hope to thrive. Guillen put that in jeopardy. The Venezuelan admitted during his news conference he should will stick to sports and leave politics alone.  Good advice.

Now for the other stunner yesterday.  The University of Arkansas has fired Head Football Coach Bobby Petrino because he lied to them.  On April Fools Day Petrino was involved in a motorcycle accident that hospitalized him overnight with rib and spine injuries.  Petrino however forgot to tell the university that his recently hired female assistant was a passenger on the motorcycle.  In fact both the school and his family released statements saying that the 51 year old married father of 4 was alone at the time of the wreck.  Bad idea.  25 year old former Razorbacks volleyball player Jessica Dorrell is mentioned as being an uninjured passenger on Petrino's motorcycle in the police report.  The kicker here is Dorrell was recently hired by Petrino as a staff assistant and that he had loaned her 20 thousand dollars.  You guessed it Dorrell has been Petrino's mistress for some time now.  A-D Jeff Long did the right thing by acting quickly and firing Petrino from his $3 million job.  I'm guessing Petrino never sees pay days like this again.  What he does in his personal life is not my business.  He made his personal life the business of the University the minute he authorized the hiring of Dorrell--over 159 other candidates--and then lied about her being on the motorcycle at the time of the accident.  This is just another case of a big time college coach thinking he is above the law.  Good for Arkansas for making the move and I will be rooting for the Razorbacks to win the BCS Championship game this fall under an interim coach.