Not dead yet!

With only two weeks to go until the bar exam, it doesn’t take much to provide a ray of light into our lives. (“Leftovers of a bad meal for dinner??!! Hooray!! At least I don’t need to determine if the rubber chicken is a holder in due course of a negotiable instrument!!!”)

That said, we feel fairly certain that the news that maybe, just maybe, Rick Pitino will let Derrick Caracter come back to the Louisville team would have made us WOOT out loud on the brightest of days:

“He came to me one more time and asked for any option available to get back on the team. I have given him the same option I gave Scott Padgett when he played for me at Kentucky. [...] If Derrick is willing to grow up in the game of life and we can help him realize his potential, then we are there to help him. But that’s a big if.”

A big if indeed. Caracter will need to sit out next season to show he can grow “as a student, as a person, and as a basketball player”, and (notably) will NOT be on scholarship, so he’ll have to pay his own way to school. And get a job. And not get Fulmer-like fat again. So his odds of success are, shall we say, less than great.

In other words, a win-win-win for humble bloggers – either he succeeds and he gets a chance to fulfill his unrealized potential as a hoopster (and no one has ever questioned he has the talent to be great), or he fails epically and we can ridicule him on his way down the chute. Like we’ve been doing for the last few months.

Either way, we gleefully add “caracter issues” as a new category to the blog. Because if you think we’re not going to do a few more chapters of this now that there is an actual chance that Caracter will stay … well, you don’t know us very well.

In the meantime – we return to our office cave to execute some wills and devise some property. Word.

(HT: Eamonn, doing fine fine work as always.)

Rick Pitino: Phew. Recruiting season is over for the fall, so I can finally enjoy the summer a little bit before things get cranking again next month … make a few bucks on the speaker circuit, maybe work in a week back in Italy with the wife. But first, I gotta check in on my ponies down at the race track.

[walks into stable]

Pitino: Hey there, Val. Good horse. You want a carrot? You want a little nuzzle with Daddy Rick? Yeah … just you and me here now …

[stall door swings open]

Derrick Caracter: You better do that question thang!

Pitino: Shit.

Pitino: Derrick, what the hell are you doing here? We aren’t on campus, these are my private stables.

Caracter: Aww, Coach, you know I just like to hang around winners. And that means being near you, Coach.

Pitino: Derrick, we’ve been over this time and time again. I’m happy that you withdrew from the draft, and I’m glad you are trying to regain your eligibility with summer classes. But you and me? You and Louisville? We’re through.

Caracter: Ha … I hear you, Coach, just testing me, trying to see if ol’ DC is really committed this time!

Pitino: Derrick, I don’t think you understand. You no longer have a scholarship at the University of Louisville. We’ve given it away.

Caracter: Aw, Coach, I know you’re just playin’ with me! See, I even started followin’ your favorite sport – big dog racin’!

Pitino: These are horses, Derrick.

Caracter: Right, horses. Anyway, I’ve been watchin’ them and everything, just so I could spend a little time away from you, maybe sew some fences or something.

Pitino: [figures out what he meant by that] Look, Derrick, I appreciate all the effort, but my decision is final. You’ve had too many second chances already, and it’s best for both of us if you move on to somewhere else.

Caracter: [silent]

Pitino: Derrick? Did you hear me?

Caracter: [silent, thinking]

Caracter: Shit! I get it! You don’t want me to sit back and watch, you want me to DO … I know what I gotta do! I’ll get me some of those silk underwear things and ride one of these bitches!

Pitino: Derrick, that’s not … [overwhelmed by his idiocy] … God, I don’t even know where to start, and even if that WAS what I meant, you’re too fat to play basketball, much less to be a jockey.

Caracter: Hell no! I just saw Shaq do it on TV the other day.

Caracter: I even got me a couple cases of that Vitamin Water just in case! I’ve been drinkin’ it, bathin’ in it …

Pitino: I get it, I get it. Look, do what you want with your free time now, and do whatever you need to get eligible, but please understand – you need to go away. Soon. Like, now. Please leave.

Caracter: [now wearing riding silks, laughing maniacally] Aw, Coach, I getcha! I’m riding right out of here!

[mounts one of Pitino's horses bareback and rides away]

Pitino: DAMMIT, DERRICK, THAT’S NOT WHAT I MEANT …

[horse collapses from weight before getting to the road]

Caracter: COACH! I THINK I BROKE THIS HORSE FOR YOU! COACH?? I LOVE YOU!!!!

Pitino: [exasperated] Dammit.

Inspiration courtesy of the Yuletide Simian hyah.