The University of Louisville: Making All The Right Moves (h/t Tom Cruise)

Good evening, Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) fans.

Hope you had a great Thanksgiving – and are having an even better Christmas season (remember, last Sunday was the first Sunday after Advent – as my friend the late @vabeachrep said, Christmas isn’t just a day – it’s an entire season).

Clearly, Louisville was in dire straits – and for too long.  Take a look at this list of scandals under prior university president, Dr. James Ramsey.  Ramsey exits the university – and becomes the nation’s highest paid public university president.  Yeesh.  Scandals touched every area of the university – men’s basketball (twice), embezzling from the ticket office, law school dean promising scholarship money it doesn’t have, insensitivity towards minorities, etc. – it was bad.  

On top of that, you have football program that isn’t achieving as much as it should with the best player in college football in Lamar Jackson.  And then you see the football program absolutely bottom out in 2018 (almost to the point of fan apathy).

Sometimes you have to blow it up to make sure it’s better again.  That is what seems to be happening at Louisville. See this twitter exchange between @TalkinACCSports and I.

Easily… nearly the can’t miss HR hire Chris Mack was. It was that good. He will win 8+ games within 3 years. It’s a major rebuild, but they will be patient and you’ll see improvement instantly.

— Jeff or Jeffrey Fann (@TalkinACCSports) December 3, 2018

They have the right university president – and they appears to have the right AD – Louisville, as a whole, is back on track to a good road

— Matthew (@hokiesmash_ASD) December 3, 2018

Louisville appears to be making all the right moves.

Leadership starts at the very top of the university, right?  Louisville has made some really good hires since March 2018. Let’s discuss the human resources actions, shall we?  Home run hires below:

• Neeli Bendapudi (University President) – Neeli Bendapudi was hired away from the University of Kansas (at Kansas, she was the Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor – and she was known as a terrific fundraiser and someone who collaborates well with others).  She taught at Ohio State and Texas A&M and was also the dean of the college of business at Kansas. Bendapudi has already shown she can lead a university.
• Vince Tyra (Athletic Director) – Honestly, I don’t know much about Vince Tyra, but Louisville fans seem to be happy that he was hired as the Athletic Director.  So if you’re fan base is happy – then they are happy and that’s good thing. It looks like to me he is trying to make the rounds with alumni, establish relationships, increase fundraising, improve the student experience, etc.  These are the right efforts from an athletic director.
• Chris Mack (Head Men’s Basketball Coach) – Chris Mack needs no introduction, but we’ll gladly link to his bio.  Enough said. h/t @CardChronicle  He won a lot of games at Xavier (consistently getting the Musketeers to the NCAA tournament).  Mack’s Cards just beat Michigan State – and these are all Pitino’s players. Oh, and somehow, Louisville was able to hire Dino Gaudio!
• Scott Satterfield (Head Football Coach) – Our friends in Louisville clearly wanted Jeff Brohm (Purdue Head Football Coach) to be their next head football coach – he is Louisville’s favorite son, after all.  However, something told me that Brohm wasn’t necessarily in the fold – and that Satterfield was A TERRIFIC candidate (North Carolina actively chose to make a horrific choice and not hire him for their own vacancy afdsajfhdaldhaljdhasd – let’s say that again for emphasis – North Carolina actively chose to make a horrific choice and not hire him for their own vacancy afdsajfhdaldhaljdhasd).  The hire of Satterfield is happening, folks. Card Chronicle, SB Nation’s University of Louisville athletics blog, reports that the university is set to announce Scott Satterfield as its next football coach. Satterfield’s teams have dynamic rushing attacks and they win the line of scrimmage.  Louisville fans will need to be patient – but he will turn that football program around.

And that, my friends, is how you change the culture of a university.

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