LSU's New Interim AD Says School's Athletic Department 'Is Not Broken'

As LSU interim athletic director Verge Ausberry sat between two members of the LSU Board of Supervisors who'd been appointed by Gov. Jeff Landry, he sought to assure Tigers fans that the abrupt departure of previous athletic director Scott Woodward was not a sign of dysfunction.

"We have championship coaches here. This place is not broken," Ausberry said Friday in a meeting room inside 102,000-seat Tiger Stadium. "The athletic department is not broken. We win."

A night earlier, one of those championship coaches, women's basketball coach Kim Mulkey, declined to attend a press conference after an exhibition game because she was "heartbroken" over Woodward's departure, said assistant coach Bob Starkey, who spoke in her place.

Woodward stepped down on Thursday night, four days after football coach Brian Kelly had been fired, one day after Landry asserted that Woodward would not select Kelly's successor, and four years before Woodward's contract as athletic director — worth close to $2 million annually — was due to expire.

"What an exciting day here today at LSU," John Carmouche, who chairs the board’s athletics committee, said Friday morning as he formally introduced Ausberry as interim AD. "It is important to me and many others that LSU and our state restore balance so we can reclaim the future we built in athletics as an institution and as a state."

Board chairman Scott Ballard portrayed Woodward's departure not so much as performance-based, but rather as "a mutual agreement after conversations" between Woodward and the LSU board.

"Nothing’s off the table of why Scott and LSU had a mutual agreement that after those conversations that they mutually agreed that it was a good idea," Ballard said. "Scott is a great human