"“It is inevitable that some defeat will enter even the most victorious life" -- Ben Stein

Welcome to reality, Syracuse!

After Penn State was dragged kicking and screaming into the world in which the rest of us live, Syracuse is now forced in as well.

A non-ESPN victim of sexual abuse has come forward, and suddenly we have coverage. It's not the wall-to-wall coverage engendered by the horrifying Jerry Sandusky case in Happy Valley, but it's getting some air-time.

Bernie Fine, long-time assistant coach to Syracuse's Jim Boeheim, has been axed. Boeheim, who threw the full weight of his support behind Fine, was contrite in a statement released to the media apologizing for possibly hurting people's feelings by suggesting that victims of abuse are just in it for the money.

He did not in any way, shape, or form apologize for blindly supporting Fime without ever so much as asking Fine if the allegations were true!

Franco Harris got whacked for supporting Joe Paterno—who hadn't been accused of any wrongdoing, even though Joe lost his job.

Boeheim, however, isn't an octogenarian that his school has been trying to figure out how to get rid of. Paterno did the legally correct thing, but was crucified by moral outrage. Boeheim broke no laws that we know of—unless he did, indeed, see one of Fine's victims in the assistant's hotel bed and failed to call authorities—but his castigation of the victims at both Syracuse and Penn State puts him on even more slippery footing than Paterno's banana peel. One important difference: The school, in the person of Chancellor Nancy Cantor [left] is backing Boeheim, at least for now...

Welcome to the real world, boys: An employee accused of sexual abuse can kiss his job goodbye, and in many lines of work, his entire career—even if the accusations are not true. And then the litigation begins: Ask O.J. Simpson how that "not guilty" verdict positively affected his civil trial, as well as the public's perception of him!

It's all ugly, and in the case of these college coaches, it's played out now on a tableau festooned with microphones, cameras, and reporters.

Some mailmen endure all of this, guilty and not guilty. Teachers do, too. So do police officers, dentists, and car salesmen. It makes the papers. It ruins careers, true or false.

We may never know for sure if Bernie Fine really was such a sleaze, or if Syracuse's insular athletics department turned a blind eye toward it all.

But, it doesn't matter now: Welcome to the real world, baby.