I was tempted to say something like this: Only in Louisiana would the obvious newspaper lede be . . . Moments after learning of its first-round opponent in the NCAA tournament, the LSU women’s basketball staff began preparations to play North Carolina-Ashville — preparations that will include assistant coach Carla Berry.
Acting head coach Bob Starkey said Monday that Berry’s status on the staff had not changed in the wake of reports that Berry is the coach who went to LSU officials with allegations of improper conduct between former LSU coach Pokey Chatman and one or more players.
APPARENTLY, Carla Berry is the LSU women's assistant coach who blew the whistle last month on former Coach Pokey Chatman's reputed romantic interest in a former player (or players) when that player (or players) weren't former yet.
And, apparently, the first thing that comes to the mind of Baton Rouge sportswriters is that, somehow, the natural thing is that people who report wrongdoing somehow will suffer the same fate as a leper shipwrecked on Hypochondriac Island.
How retrograde. How uncivilized. How corrupt.
How spot on, actually.
In high school, no one liked a "narc." In the world of work -- not to mention the world o' government -- nobody likes a whistleblower (with the possible exceptions of taxpayers and reporters).
In the Catholic Church . . . . Well, let's not spend several days and hundreds of casualties revisiting all the ways the Bride of Christ has been defiling herself lately, 'kay?
NOPE, nobody likes a narc. Narcs get beat up; narcs get fired. Sometimes, narcs get dead.
It's a beautiful thing, that fallen human nature. And because we're so loathe to acknowledge how routinely rotten we really are, our first reaction to such obvious honesty in sportswriting is to think "How ridiculous!"
Now that's ridiculous.
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