Bobby Petrino decided to take a motorcycle ride on April 1.
This turned out to be the ride of his life.
No foolin'.
This was not a middle-aged man going for a joy ride, letting the wind blow through his hair as he contemplated the downside of his life, his portfolio or what to have for dinner.
Petrino, 51 --- and the head coach of the Arkansas Razorbacks football team --- is richer than your average Hog riding a hog. He had life in his palm like it was a handful of pork rinds.
He led the Razorbacks to a 21-5 record the last two years and his team was a player, just below LSU and Alabama, in the SEC. Which means his team was a player on the national stage.
Married, father of four, head coach of a prominent program, making money, riding motorcycles, eating pork rinds.
We should all be so lucky.
But Petrino wrecked his motorcycle that day and suffered four broken ribs, a cracked vertebra in his neck and numerous abrasions on his face.
And that was the good news.
How did this happen? He said the sun was in his eyes.
Uh-huh.
Maybe it was the cloud in his brain. Or the 25 year-old girl that was draped around him.
Petrino had been cheating on his wife with a girl young enough, well, to be his daughter. Sadly, this happens every day across America. Ask Bill Clinton.
This bike ride turned out to be Petrino's blue dress.
Tuesday night, Arkansas fired Petrino.
Arkansas Athletic Director Jeff Long put the period on a Petrino sentence that's been being written for many, many years. If this were his first mishap, i.e., Gary Pinkel, he would have been fine.
But this wasn't his first instance of character misjudgment. And he lied.
While Pinkel basically said that yes, he did in fact, cut down that cherry tree, Petrino basically said his was at the neighbor's playing Wii.
Pigs go wii, after all.
"He made the decision to mislead the public, and it adversely affected the university and the football program," Long said. "There was a pattern of misleading and manipulative behavior to deceive me'.
I guess it depends on what your meaning of the word is, is.
Petrino has worked 15 different jobs for 11 different programs/organizations the last 24 years. He makes gypsies look settled.
While he was at Louisville, he went behind their back to take the job at Auburn. While he was with the Atlanta Falcons, he quit 13 games into his lone season. 2007, with a 78-word LETTER posted in the locker room.
Nice, huh?
His tenure with the Falcons was the shortest for a non-interim coach since the 1970 NFL-AFL merger.
This was his track record, this is who he is. It's a matter of character, even for football-crazy Arkansas, for the totality of Petrino's "work."
In the end, not-so-nice guys do finish last.
So, jump on your motorcycle, coach, and go buy your wife a nice, clean, new blue dress.
She deserves it.
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