The future could have been Hoosier red

In 2001, Louisville athletic director Tom Jurich almost left the Cardinals to become Indiana University’s A.D. As a fan of IU’s intercollegiate athletic programs, I couldn’t help but think “What if ?” as I read the following article from the March 31 Louisville Courier-Journal about how Jurich, considered the “best in the business” by basketball coach Rick Pitino, has made U of L into a sports powerhouse. Would IU’s football team break into the top 25? Would the basketball team be competing annually for the national championship instead of getting canned in the first round of the N.I.T.? We will never know for sure.

University of Louisville athletic director Tom Jurich has this view of the men's basketball team's first trip to the Final Four since 1986:

Jurich has done some heavy lifting in his 7½ years on the job. He has fired one football coach and hired two, navigated NCAA probation for men's basketball, overseen the retirement of an icon in basketball coach Denny Crum and landed Rick Pitino to replace him.

But he's not about to view a trip to the Final Four as a culmination of anything, even though in the past 12 months the school has gained admission to the Big East Conference, earned its first top-10 finish in football, gone to the NCAA Sweet 16 in volleyball, begun construction on a baseball stadium and natatorium, earned its first top-25 ranking in men's tennis and knocked off the nation's No. 1 baseball team twice.

"Last week I'd have told you we were about 40 percent of the way to where I'd like us to be as an athletic department," Jurich said. "Today I'd tell you we're 45."

In the next breath he's talking about breaking ground on an indoor football practice facility in the next few months and nearing completion of fund-raising for a basketball practice facility that he describes as "a jewel." Plans are being drawn up now.

Jurich has reached a comfort zone at U of L. He has a lifetime contract. This summer close friend Terry Hagerman will begin construction on a new home for the Juriches, who already have a vacation home on Rough River in Breckinridge County.

"Tom's vision and energy are incredible," said Junior Bridgeman, chairman of U of L's board of trustees. "We all understand how fortunate we are to have him."

"He's the best in the business," Pitino echoed. "I go places and people ask me, 'How is it to work for Tom Jurich?' I tell them, 'Better than you can imagine.' "

But Jurich insisted yesterday that credit for this Final Four trip should be entirely Pitino's.

"It's all Rick and his staff and players," he said. "I was hired to do this. The coaches have done the hard part, putting the players and game plans and wins together. I'm just sitting back and enjoying it now.

"But that doesn't mean we're not going to keep our sleeves rolled up. … I never want to have the mentality -- and I never want anybody around here to have the mentality -- that we're just going to maintain."

Of all the problems he has tackled at U of L, Jurich said he never dreamed men's basketball would be one of them.

"When I got here, the NCAA probation was my only concern with basketball," he said. "They were coming off the Elite Eight. Honestly, I never gave a thought to basketball not being successful. I put all my efforts into cleaning it up with the NCAA. I never had any clue the program had slipped the way that it had.

"And then that first year, to lose 20 games, got me looking back to Colorado State, where we'd won 20 games in basketball and won the Holiday Bowl in football, and I'm asking myself, 'What did I just do?' But we were able to turn it."

It took a difficult period for both him and the university to do that, however. When his relationship with Crum soured, Jurich got a hostile reception from many U of L fans. He and his family received threats that he never has outlined -- and hasn't forgotten.

In the midst of that, he went to Indiana University to interview for the athletic director's job in early 2001. He came back thinking he would take it.

"I would have bet you just about anything that we were going to Indiana," Jurich said. "And we had to come back here and make a tough decision."

Once he and his family decided they'd be happier in Louisville, Jurich had to decide whether to back off from seeking a change in basketball or to move forward in considering Crum's future.

"The easiest thing would have been for me to turn my head for another year," Jurich said. "Then the community would have taken over, because the next year we were headed for maybe five, six wins. But that wasn't what was best for this program."

Since then, Jurich says, he has had many chances to move elsewhere, including three particularly tempting opportunities from the West Coast: Washington, UCLA and California. He also was approached recently by both Colorado and Ohio State.

"Schools have come with more money," he said, "but this has a big piece of our heart tied to it."

Jurich said he's pleased with the progress on all fronts at U of L -- facilities, on the playing field, academic strides and gender equity improvement. Responding to a deal between the University of Kentucky and Host Communications to pay WHAS-AM $1.15 million annually for primary broadcast rights, he negotiated a new deal where U of L will hold secondary rights and have its games aired on five out-of-town affiliates -- for about a third of the cost of the Host-UK deal.

"It's probably one of the best deals we've ever made," he said. "… I'm very, very happy for this program and for the university. It really deserved to be on the map, for so many different things. I don't want to be the big guy. I'm as common as the day is long, and I'm proud of it. That's the way I've always lived."

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