LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — Pat Kelsey was having a perfectly good evening until I asked him about basketball.
He had just thrown out the first pitch at a Louisville Bats game. A lifelong Cincinnati Reds fan, Kelsey had met Eric Davis, admired his own bobblehead and received a quick lesson in how to grip a four-seam fastball.
He threw a strike.
Or close enough.
Kelsey joked that the ABS system might have been required to make the call, which is amusing because baseball — the sport that now employs computers to decide whether a pitch caught the corner of an imaginary box — presently has a more understandable rulebook than college basketball.
In baseball, at least, somebody eventually tells you whether it was a strike.
College basketball hands it to a judge.
Kelsey had spent the previous few minutes sounding like a 12-year-old who had wandered through the gates at Riverfront Stadium. He talked about Pete Rose and Eric Davis, about the smell of beer and peanuts and hot dogs and the crack of the bat.
"This whole thing is just unbelievable," he said. "I'm a kid in a candy store."
Then I asked him about his basketball team.
Sorry, Coach.
Specifically, I asked what he and every other college coach are supposed to do while lawyers and judges determine who gets to play, who doesn't, and whether the answer they gave yesterday will survive until tomorrow.
"That's it," Kelsey said. "Your guess is as good as mine."
Seth Trimble has enrolled at Louisville. He's part of Kelsey's program. He's also part of a lawsuit — one of 27 athletes added this week to a Jefferson County case seeking a fifth season of eligibility. A hearing Monday morning could determine whether he's allowed to play for the Cardinals at all this year.
So Louisville waits. Trimble waits. Kelsey waits.
The lawyers, fortunately, appear to be getting plenty of playing time.
"Each day is like a box of chocolates," Kelsey said, borrowing from Forrest Gump. "You never know what you're going to get with stays and, you know, new laws, all that stuff."
There was a time when determining whether a college basketball player could play required a transcript, a rulebook and perhaps somebody from the compliance office.
Now you may need local counsel.
And there isn't a thing Kelsey can do about it.
Coaches are paid millions of dollars to assemble rosters, develop players, design offenses and win games. Increasingly, one of the most important questions about their teams — who actually gets to play — is being answered in courtrooms.
Kelsey's response is the only one available to him.
"I'm going to control what I can control," he said, "and do my best to have our team do that exact same thing, and that's just be great tomorrow."
Good policy.
Because tomorrow somebody may file another motion.
Friday night, though, Kelsey got to spend a little while with a simpler game. Ninety feet between bases. Three strikes and you're out. Four balls and you walk.
And if Pat Kelsey wants to know who's eligible to play basketball for Louisville?
That's Monday's call. Maybe.
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