There’s considerable outcry around the globe over the United States’ attempts to extradite Roman Polanski, but Your Kid’s Not Going Pro’s Bob Cook refuses to join the chorus in support of the former Mr. Sharon Tate.  “if someone who committed a crime like Polanski™s was found to have slipped through the background-check cracks and was now coaching your child™s team, or your niece™s team, or was your local Catholic priest/soccer coach,” wonders Cook,  “would you say, ‘Eh, he™s brilliant, it was a long time ago ” let him coach.’ Or would you say, ‘How in the FUCKITY FUCK FUCK did this league let him near children?'”  Well, it depends.   Would he autograph my copy of “Knife In The Water”?

Bob, you say, Roman Polanski, one of the great directors of our time, is never going to waste his life teaching soccer to 6-year-olds in the suburbs. And, Bob, you say, Polanski has long proven himself no threat to society ” he doesn™t start romantic relationships with 15-year-old actresses anymore. And, Bob, you say, the man had a hard life, full of tragedy.

But the fact remains that if this were Roman Polanski, pipefitter, instead of Roman Polanski, filmmaker, legally speaking this would not be a guy who gets petitions on his behalf. He would be the kind of guy parents take up a petition against to get him to stop coaching the girls™ field hockey team. Are we parents overprotective about having this kind of person around? You bet. But I™m sure Martin Scorsese, one of the backers of the Free Roman Polanski petition, would shudder a little if he ever thought someone who plied a 13-year-old with champagne and Quaaludes, and forced himself upon her, was coaching his kids™ teams.