THE FINAL SAY
By Zach McCrite
Louisville
Baseball’s
Success Was
Perfect Timing
The boys of summer were at it again in June.
University of Louisville baseball was once again
a College World Series participant. And they were
the lipstick on the pig.
Let me explain.
For the fourth time in school history and third
time in five years the Cardinals have made it to
the promised land of college baseball — Omaha,
Nebraska.
But this time, it’s while the UofL athletics
program, and the university as a whole, has been
under the most scrutiny they have ever been in.
FIRST, LETS TALK ABOUT THE PIG
It’s been a tough month for the pig. University
of Louisville Athletics. I hate to be so broad, but
such is the tumult with the program as a whole
— not on the field or the court, but off.
Where would you like to begin? The men’s
basketball sex scandal is never any fun to talk
about for anyone, but with the NCAA’s Committee
on Infractions levying down their final penalties
on the basketball program last month, perhaps
that’s a good place to start.
It’s the death penalty, retroactive to 2010 through
2014. Barring a successful appeal (good luck!) by
UofL, the 2013 National Championship banner
is coming down.
This perhaps begins the tying of a bow on
a package that surfaced back in August 2015,
when UofL brass first learned of Katina Powell.
The now-infamous escort claimed that she and
other escorts were paid thousands of dollars by
former staff member Andre McGee in exchange
for dancing and having sex with Cardinal players
and recruits for a span of over four years.
With the NCAA releasing its penalties in June,
the wounds of that scandal not only reopened.
They became bigger.
Combine that with the University of Louisville
Foundation’s forensic audit that was made public
on June 9.
Of the 135 pages of financial information, 11 of
them have to do directly with athletics. Included
in the findings are the President’s Office buying
up over $800,000 worth of football and men’s
basketball tickets through University of Louisville
Foundation funds and selling them off, except no
one knows where the money went or to whom
the tickets went.
Also among the numerous items the audit
discovered, the Foundation also funded the
compensation of many names (at least last names)
known to many fans in the region. Athletics
Director Tom Jurich, along with Jurich’s son,
Mark, and former men’s basketball coach Denny
Crum have received approximately $4.9 million
in compensation from 2010 to 2016.
Tom Jurich, a man whom you cannot tell the
story of the successful rise of Cardinal Athletics
without, was paid over $5.3 million in total in 2016.
That’s astronomical for an A.D., but I’m not even
mad at that. Get yours, Tom. Get yours.
The big problem I got with it, and with a lot of
what’s going on between the athletics department
and the UofL Foundation, is that you’re using
Foundation funds to help cover a lot of financial
deficits, some of them unnecessary.
Oh, and according to emails revealed in the
audit, you’re trying to cover it up. That’s never
a good look.
According to the Foundation website, “The
Foundation’s vision is to make the University
of Louisville a premier metropolitan research
university recognized for advancing the
intellectual, social and economic development
of our community and its citizens while placing the
University among the top tier of similar universities
in the nation.”
Nowhere on the website could I find anything
that says the Foundation’s vision is to compensate
people in athletics or to buy tickets and then sell
them off to unknown people without any receipt.
It’s all money that could’ve helped research a
cure for a disease or (gasp) eliminate the need
for the mandatory Student Athletics Fee that the
Athletics Association receives from every student.
Fans may not care much about all of these parts
of the pig. In fact, I can hear some fans now saying
“Who cares about any of this. Just win games.”
Those fans care less about the university than
they claim. Embarrassment outside of the games
be damned, right? Fair enough.
But for the rest of us...
HERE COMES THE LIPSTICK
So, let’s leave it at this: there has been bad
news-aplenty on campus.
Meanwhile Louisville baseball coach Dan
McDonnell, on top of giving the Cardinal fans
quite the “offseason” bridge between the Kentucky
Derby and college football season, is the biggest
thing to happen to baseball in this metro area
since the Louisville Slugger Factory planted the
“World’s Largest Bat” out in front of their place.
Forget the result of the Cardinals’ trip to Omaha.
What matters more is that when you can separate
yourself from “College Sports, Inc.” and the money
and corruption surrounding college athletics
all over the country, you can see someone like
McDonnell and his team.
When you go out to Jim Patterson Stadium,
you can watch a kid from Pennsylvania (home
of the Little League World Series) light up both
the scoreboard and his teammate’s catcher’s mitt
in Brendan McKay. He was named Collegiate
Baseball’s Player of the Year this season, and you
wouldn’t even know it. He’s got a humility to him
that’s near non-existent to many when they’re
showered with those sorts of accolades.
Or you can take in another home run from
Jeffersonville’s own Drew Ellis, whose energy
reverberates the same as when he was 10 years
old lighting up the George Rogers Clark ballparks.
Louisville’s baseball team reminds you that
they’re kids that love a game. That reminder is
fleeting in college athletics these days.
The Louisville Cardinals baseball team