The following letter was released to the public from President Greg Postel to Tom Jurich notifying of the Board of Trustee’s decision to terminate Jurich as Athletic Director.
Dr. Mr. Jurich,
The Board of Trustees of the University of Louisville has authorized me to provide you with Notice of your termination for cause pursuant to Section 6.3 of the Employment Contract with the University of Louisville dated October 1, 2007. The termination is effective today, October 20, 2017.
The Board of Trustee’s decision to terminate your employment for cause was made only after the consideration of extensive information and weeks of thoughful deliberation. The Board recognized your many accomplishments over the years and was keenly awarely of the gravity of the matter before it. That said, in exercising its fiduciary duty, the Board made the decision that it, in good faither, deemed to be in the best interest of the University.
Your contract and the Position Description approved by the Board of Trustees in November 2003 require you to performn the duties of Athletic Director & Vice Preident in an ‘exemplary fashion.’ You have failed to fulfill these and other obligations and in doing so have engaged in willful misconduct.
As set forth in your Position Description, you had a duty to promote ‘zero tolerance’ for infractions thorugh education and enforcement. However, over the course of several years, under your management & oversigh, University Athletics- and the University itself- have been protrayed negatively, both locally & nationally, as a result of multiple compliane lapses occurring in multiple sports. In response, you have deliberately refused or been slow to take any meaningful disciplinary or enforcement action. This is willfully inconsistent with promoting the University and promoting “zero tolerance”.
In addition, you have demonstrated a consistent & willful lack of supervision of head coaches. As the Athletic Director, you are responsible for supervising head coaches & performing yearly performance reviews & assessments. Despite this obligation, our review of the Deprartment of Athletics personnel files for all varsity athletics head coaches – some of whom have been employed by the University for well over ten years- do not contain a single performance assessment or disciplinary memorandum issued by you. The effect of your willful refusal to supervise & discipline the individuals who report to you – in the face of nationally publicized transgressions- has been to create a culture of tolerance within University Athletics for behavior that falls far short of NCAA, ACC, & University expectations.
The cultuture has now culminated with an FBI investigation implicating certain members of the University’s men’s basketball program in a scheme of fraud & malfeasance in the recruitment of student athletes. Your significant & habitual dereliction of duties has caused substantial damage to the Athletic Deparment & the University as a whole.
During this same time period, your own willful misconduct has also been demonstrated through ineffective management, divisive leadership, unprofessional conduct, and a lack of collegiality best characterized as intimidation and bullying that extends from student government to the University’s senior leadership. This has caused substantial damage to the University.
Finally, although you are employee of the University of Louisville, in your position as Athletic Director you are the “Responsible Officer” and an agent of the University of Louisville Athletic Association (ULAA). In those roles, you are authorized to act for ULAA in carrying out its functions according to the terms & conditions of ULAA’s Management & Agency Agreements with the University. As an officer of ULAA, you have a statutory obligation to discharge your duties in good faith, on an informed basis, and in a manner you honestly believe to be in the best interest of the corporation.
Despite this fiduciary obligation, over the course of several years you have repeatedly engaged in willful misconduct by entering into multiple purported agreements or understandings with former President Ramsey for your own financial or other benefit. Moreover, you entered into these purported agreements or understandings with the intent of concealing them from campus or public knowledge. These undisclosed deals with Dr. Ramsey lacked approval by the either the ULAA Board or the University’s Board of Trustees & constitute repeated breaches of your fiduciary duty. They have caused substantial damage to both ULAA & to the University.
Your deliberate dereliction of duties, unprofessional conduct, bullying, and breach of your fiduciary obligations cannot be considered isolated events. Instead, they are illustrative of a pattern & practice of willful misconduct resulting in substantial detriment to the University. Accordingly, the above misconduct, while not an exhaustive list, constitutes “cause” for termination under Section 6.3 of your Employment Agreement, including under Sectino 6.3(d) “Willful misconduct detrimental to the University.”
Pursuant to Section 6.7 of your Employment Contract, all unearned and unvested compensation, benefits & other incentives provided in your Employment Contract shall be forfeited.
Sincerely,
Gregory C. Postel, M.D.
Interim President.
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