Good coaches bring out the best in their athletes. They help their charges improve, compete, and achieve success in the game and in life, and that in itself is rewarding. But even the most altruistic coach is expected to produce some wins—and the pressure to do so can sometimes send an otherwise focused coach careening off the deep end. Maybe that pressure is what led these six coaches to make some serious errors in judgment.
Major Applewhite hurts young wife with younger mistress
In 2009, Major Applewhite was living the dream. He was the offensive coordinator for the Texas Longhorns, who had just defeated Ohio State in the Fiesta Bowl, and his young wife was nine months pregnant. Four years later, however, it was revealed that Applewhite had been cheating with a Longhorns student trainer. The contrite coach admitted to having an “inappropriate, consensual relationship” during the Fiesta Bowl activities and was disciplined. He and his wife worked things out “through counsel.”
Bobby Petrino hires his mistress
Coach Bobby Petrino made a bad judgment call when he hired his secret mistress—25-year-old Jessica Dorrell—as the University of Arkansas Razorbacks’ new “development coordinator of football.” In 2012, when the lovers were out for an afternoon ride on the coach’s Harley, they crashed the bike and fled the scene. Petrino, 51, lied to police, telling them he had spent the day at a nearby lake with this wife, Becky. He later amended his lie to say that he had wrecked his motorcycle but was alone at the time. Nine days later, the University of Arkansas fired Petrino. Today, Bobby is coaching for the University of Louisville and remains married to Becky, with whom he has four children and one grandchild.
Bill Belichick is “the other man”
New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick married his wife Debby in 1977. By 2004, the couple had separated, and in the summer of 2006, they legally divorced. Debby, apparently, was fed up with the relationship her husband was maintaining with Sharon Shenocca, who reported that her lover had showered her with cash, luxury vacations, a $2 million townhouse, and a free pass to the 2008 Super Bowl in Houston. In Shenocca’s subsequent divorce, Belichick was named as “the other man.” Belichick is still coaching for the Pats and now spends his personal time with Linda Holliday.
Sean Payton juggles mistresses and bounty scandal
Why, in 2011, would Sean Payton move his family from New Orleans, where he was coaching the Saints, to Fort Worth, Texas? He said it was to enroll the children in an elite private school. But the truth is that Mrs. Beth Payton found out her hubby was cheating and wanted out of New Orleans immediately. A year later, while Payton was on suspension from the NFL over a bounty scandal, the couple divorced. Payton has since moved on with Skylene Montgomery, Miss West Virginia USA 2008.
Rush Propst can’t hide his double life
Rush Propst hit it big when MTV made a reality show, Two-A-Days, featuring the coach’s 2005 and 2006 teams at Hoover High School in Birmingham, Alabama. But in addition to his coaching and TV gigs, Propst had his hands full. He had three kids with wife Tammy Cox, the high school sweetheart he wed in 1990. He had three more children with his secret mistress, Stefnie Duck, who was also married. Propst’s marriage and coaching gig with Hoover ended when a newspaper article exposed his double life. Today, he and Duck are married and have four children together. Propst now coaches Colquitt County High School in Georgia.
Mike Price makes a costly error in judgment
Coach Mike Price met Joyce Taylor in kindergarten in the early 1950s, married her when he was just 19, and had three children with her. In December 2002, Price was hired by Alabama to coach the renowned Crimson Tide football team. His contract was rescinded just five months later. Turns out the coach picked up two “working girls” at a strip club in Pensacola and took them back to his room for a threesome. The next day, while Price golfed, his dates charged $1,000 worth of room service to-go. The cost was far greater for the coach, who lost a seven-year, $10 million-dollar contract with the Tide.
Image courtesy of businessinsider.com
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