The 25 best, worst and most regrettable sports tattoos
Good thing no one got a tattoo commemorating Louisville's 2013 national championship...
— Sports Illustrated (@SInow) February 20, 2018
...Ah, wait, Rick Pitino did: pic.twitter.com/Z92SmOFlgz
Rick Pitino, 2013 NCAA men’s basketball “champions”
Seeing as the 2013 NCAA championship title was vacated, there is no official winner. So why does Rick Pitino have a Louisville Cardinals 2013 NCAA championship tattoo on his back?
What was Pitino thinking? Is this similar to University of Central Florida declaring themselves national champions just because they steamrolled their easy schedule and then beat Auburn in a meaningless bowl game? Not quite.
Technically, the team that shall not be named was in the NCAA tournament final that season and technically they did win. The problem here is that the petty big-wigs at the NCAA are hell-bent on destroying everything remotely close to their players getting any special treatment.
Pitino’s staff was accused of hiring strippers for team parties and recruitment visits. But as Pitino himself said, “Those parties did not enhance our players’ ability to win a national championship.”
He’s right. Maybe the NCAA is giving a little too much credit to the power of recruitment parties (that are probably the same at every division one school, except for maybe BYU). Or, maybe Pitino could just go with it and get a second tattoo crediting the true 2013 NCAA champion, the strippers.