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Let's Party – Er, Maybe Not
College Coaches Have, Inexcusably, Gone Wild
And we think WE
knew about partying in college.
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PubClub's Top Party Schools
So maybe we've got this all wrong.
In order to really party at college, instead of trying to drink on
fake i.d.s, whooping it up at massive alumni tailgate gatherings and
sneaking booze into football games, maybe we should just be a coach!
What in the name of Bear Bryant is going on here? Mike Prices hits
a strip club, winds up with one, two or even three girls in his
hotel room and gets fired from Alabama. This le to four years of Mike
Shula's play-not-to-lose football but now the Tide has Nick Saban returing
the team to glory. Larry Eustachy, a 47-year-old married head basketball
coach, goes to fraternity parties after his Iowa State team's games.
On the road! He's now at Southern Mississippi. How much trouble
can he get into in Hattisburg?
Fans often joke that during a poor performance, their favorite team
is going to lead them to drink. We just don't expect to be joined by
the coaches when we get there.
Coaches actually have a long history of alcohol consumption. Bryant
himself was legendary among his colleagues for keeping a bottle of scotch
or bourbon in his briefcase. John McKay loved his "see-throughs"
as he called them (vodka martinis) as much as Student Body Right.
The difference is that these (and most other) coaches have been smart
enough to do their drinking in private environments. After speeches
with a few key alumni in a quiet hotel bar or suite, for example. Among
themselves at coaching seminars. At the country club after a golf gathering.
It's a good-'ol-boys thing and it's been around as long as the forward
pass.
But to do so in public – and to be more obvious than a quarterback
sneak on fourth-and-inches – is just plain stupid. Going to
a strip club not once, but twice in the same day and getting private
lap dances!? Winding up with some of the girls in the hotel room?? Then
leaving them in there and getting caught crimson-handed after one orders
$1,000 of to-go room service??? That's worse than fumbling the opening
kickoff in the first game. And the season hadn't even started yet.
How about Coach E going with his players to frat parties???? A coach
can never be a friend of his players. He's got to be an authority figure,
the one who makes the rules and sets the standard for quality character.
He simply can't do this and party with them at the same time. How can
he bust a guy's butt when he'll be swilling beers with him after the
game? Plus, the guy is hitting on sorority girls? Talk about throwing
up airballs.
Guys, if you want to party, do it where no one will notice you. Take
a vacation to Europe. London
has lots of pubs. Amsterdam
is nice this time of the year.The Greek
Islands will give you all the party atmosphere you can handle.
Instead, you act as if you're in Cancun on Spring Break.
Did you get a look of those pictures of Eustachy "kissing girls
on the cheek," as was the popular press phrase? Kissing on the
cheek? Heck, he's practically mauling them! The girls have their heads
turned, no doubt saying "ooohhhh, get away you creep" as the
shutter is released. You just know the students are rolling their eyes
at the fact this guy is even at their parties and are the least surprised
of anyone at his predicament.
As for Price, he hadn't coached a game, let alone won so much as a
conference championship, yet he's acting like a pimple-faced freshman
away from home for the first time? He had not even signed his contract.
Is this really the guy Alabama needed calling the shots – so to
speak – when it's fourth-and-one against Auburn? Gee, we all knew
the guy liked to make passes. We just thought it was to wide receivers,
not strippers.
Price met his Destiny, all right. He just happened to find it (or her
as it were) in Pensacola instead of Tuscaloosa.
The Bartender can be reached at bartender@pubclub.com
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