[Former University of Louisville AD Tom] Jurich has been stung by the backlash that came along with his dismissal, but he owes it to a remarkable tolerance [at UL] for scandal. Rehiring tainted football coach Bobby Petrino in 2014 dented the school’s reputation, as did the multiple issues with [Rick] Pitino’s personal life and basketball program. Fixated on justifying Louisville’s inclusion in the Atlantic Coast Conference, Jurich was willing to take all the hits to the school’s image in exchange for on-field competitiveness.
… But now the school that compensated [Jurich and Pitino] at the very highest levels of their professions wants to blame the employees rather than itself for the current chaotic state of the department. Pitino was the active wrongdoer; we simply gave him more power than a third-world dictator. Jurich amassed too much clout; maybe because we paid him $5.3 million in 2016, more than the entire budget of the English, Math, Biology and History departments.
… Everyone needs a boss, and neither Pitino nor Jurich were adequately bossed in recent years. Former school president James Ramsey was busy arranging stealth sweetheart deals for himself and other university leaders (including Jurich), which helped lead to his ouster. The Board of Trustees was a rubber stamp. Lacking adequate oversight, the whole thing spun out of control.
And so we reach a point where the University of Louisville blames Pitino, and Pitino blames [his underlings] Andre McGee and Jordan Fair, and we’re supposed to believe that this institution led by wealthy and powerful alpha males was brought down by the sorcery of a former director of basketball operations and a first-year assistant coach. Call it trickle-up corruption.
The bit at the end about the alpha males is interesting… Is there even one woman at UL? As Fanny Dashwood would put it —
December 15th, 2017 at 9:34AM
Emily Bingham, historian and author, was briefly on the Board of Trustees and was among those who wanted to see the budget. I don’t know the details, but the Board was dismissed and replaced.