Louisville Magazine

MAR 2013

Louisville Magazine is Louisville's city magazine, covering Louisville people, lifestyles, politics, sports, restaurants, entertainment and homes. Includes a monthly calendar of events.

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���I very rarely close my door and my door was closed,��� Jurich says. ���So they knew what was happening.��� He started to feel confdent about midweek, in no small part because, he says, White and Gross ���were doing the talking for us.��� Still, he didn���t know how long the process would take. Another day? Another week? A month? Meanwhile, Ramsey heard chatter that the ACC presidents would vote on expansion either the Wednesday before or the Monday after Tanksgiving. Both those days came and went. No news. ���Tey never gave us a timeline,��� Jurich says. ���But I was prepared to go a long time. We couldn���t lose. We couldn���t lose. We had to get this.��� It was clear why. Te Big East was falling apart fast. Syracuse, Pitt, Rutgers, West Virginia, Notre Dame. All gone or going. Cincinnati, UConn. Looking. Cling to the Big East? You might as well prepare for life as an athletic independent. ���I printed my calendar,��� Jim Ramsey says as he lays out November 2012 on a table in the old carriage house on the grounds of the president���s residence in the Highlands. He spends more than an hour painstakingly walking a visitor through his role in the drama, usually ending with ���but talk to Tom.��� Still, there had to be an academic sunny side to this story. Without one, a conference that boasts Ivy-esque institutions like Virginia, Duke and North Carolina may have turned their collective noses. ���In all candor, if you look at our academic profle, we match up better with the Big 12,��� the president says. ���One of our aspirational peers would be UNC. But if you look at their academic profle, they���re ahead of us. But the way we described it, we can see their tail lights and we want to get closer and closer.��� Now he pulls out a postcard-size chart that tracks the university���s progress since 1998. Average ACT scores of entering freshmen, six-year graduation rate, undergraduate degrees awarded and other memoranda. Te data shows leaps in all categories. Average ACT scores? From 21.4 in ���98 to 25 last year. Six-year graduation rate? From 30.1 percent to 52.1 percent. Undergrad degrees? Up more than a thousand. Plus, according to the postcard, research money quadrupled and donations tripled. Ramsey points to the six-year graduation rate and number of undergraduate degrees. ���If you compare that to schools in the ACC, we���re not up with them,��� he says. ���UVA, their sixyear graduation rate would be like 90 percent. But we could say, ���We���re not with you yet, but we continue to move in that direction.������ Ten he smiles as he pauses, mulling whether to say what he wants to say. ���I probably shouldn���t put it this way . . .��� He does anyway: ���A conference is sort of like a neighborhood. You���d like to be in a neighborhood where every house is more expensive than yours.��� 7 :40 a.m., Wednesday, Nov. 28, 11 days after Jurich received the phone call on the beach. Ramsey���s cell phone rings. At that hour, Athletic director Tom Jurich says he didn���t have to consult football coach Charlie Strong (opposite page) or basketball coach Rick Pitino about leaving the Big East for the ACC; he knew both supported the move. Above, James Ramsey celebrates a Sugar Bowl victory not long after U of L secured the ACC invitation. as he fshes his phone out of his suit, he expects to see the name of his wife or one of his kids on the screen. ���I saw John Swoford,��� Ramsey says. ���I thought, I better take this.��� Well? ���He said, ���We want to extend an ofer to the University of Louisville for membership to the Atlantic Coast Conference.������ And Ramsey said? ���Yes!��� Swoford told Ramsey that, in the end, the vote was unanimous. By mid-afternoon, Kenny Klein, U of L���s sports information director, had scrambled to fnd an ACC logo for an afternoon press conference announcing the news. From the Big East to the ACC in about, oh, 269 hours. ���It was a grueling 11 days,��� Jurich says. Ten U of L���s connector ���celebrated��� by spending almost a week convincing Strong to turn down an ofer to coach in the SEC. Ten came the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans. Ten . . . ���Put it this way,��� says Jurich. ���I still owe Terrilynn a vacation.��� 3.13 LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 6 5

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