Coach stung by sex sting

A high school girls’ basketball coach was arrested Saturday with 17 other people during a prostitution sting in which he allegedly agreed to pay for sex. Andrew J. Bria, 56, was charged with patronizing a prostitute.

Bria officially resigned from his coaching position at York Catholic High School in York, Pa., Sunday. The school’s athletic department would make no further comment regarding the matter.

So, a coach who comes into close contact with little Catholic girls was arrested for prostitution. What’s this? The man is 56 years old and surrounded by ripe, underage forbidden fruit, and he is getting the business publicly because he elected to pay for sex instead of bite the apple. It doesn’t seem like the guy had many options, which is lame, but when you compare them to his offense, things don’t really seem that bad.

When you’re 56 and well over the hill, is it a small task to go out and pick up a dame? It doesn’t seem like the guy had many options; I already pointed out his other choices, those being any one of the girls he’s coaching. Either violate a child, get acquainted with himself or dip into the wallet – since spending years in a singles bar hopelessly dancing with reluctant partners is not something most self-respecting people can get by on.

It seems like I can’t stress this enough – the guy was around Catholic schoolgirls – how he kept his cool, I’ll never know. But he didn’t do the creepy old man thing and sit around watching them as he rubs his sweaty hands together. Gym teachers do that, in case you’re wondering, but don’t take my word for it; go into the local school and take a look around. Seek out the creepy quiet guy who does the bare minimum and stays out of the kids’ way.

Andrew Bria took this team to the state championship earlier this year and won. He was doing his best living within the lines, and the results spoke out. But it wasn’t good enough – he got snagged in a conniving and ugly way, what some would even consider entrapment – an undercover cop looked Andrew in the eye and set him up.

My only question now is did the faux prostitute look like a 17-year-old girl or a sad, middle-aged woman? That could reflect heavily on the whole nature of this invalid arrest. After all, it’s not like people don’t have options within their options, even if they are circumstantially forced into them. Betty Blow-Up Dolls just don’t cut it after 50. Technically, they don’t cut it at all – it’s more like necrophilia if you think about it; movement is key to the experience. And I imagine a coach named by The Associated Press as the state high school girls’ basketball coach of the year for Class AA would have too much class for anything less than a living human being.

All things considered, my pity for a man who so carelessly broke the law extends only as far my hopes that I can get away with the same thing, but it troubles me that his name will be tainted, if not as a sex offender then as a washed-up, over-the-hill coach who tried to pick up a lady of the night. He will no longer be known as the one who made a team of champions – the idea that such an honorable statistic is being overshadowed by his private crime is appalling. No accomplishment is too small for a man to rightfully take pride in – but the cops just wouldn’t allow it.not this Saturday.

Farewell, old friend. Bite the bullet and bounce back – we’re all pulling for you.