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Former Louisville AD Tom Jurich honored with street naming on campus

A section of Floyd Street that runs through the University of Louisville has been renamed Tom Jurich Way in honor of the former athletics director.

Louisville remains the only men’s basketball program to ever have its title vacated by the NCAA.The NCAA’s punishments are so inconsistent and uneven that the Cardinals were clearly being held to a standard that does not seem to exist for other schools.

Louisville basketball should raise the 2013 national championship banner again at the KFC Yum! Center. 

Like, today.

Like, right now.

Like, why is this even a debate?

And tomorrow, the school should file the paperwork to sue the NCAA to get it officially reinstated. 

In that order.

It’s not only time for U of L to fight, it’s time to be a bit more brash in doing so. The NCAA is so litigation-weary from lawsuits related to name, image and likeness (NIL) and the landmark House v. NCAA settlement that it doesn’t even seem like it wants to put up much of a fight anymore. And the ruling body has been weakened by the changing landscape of college athletics to the point of having little influence over its member schools.

Of course, that didn’t used to be the case, which is why Louisville tried playing nice with the NCAA during its investigation nearly a decade ago into Andre McGee’s misguided attempt to use exotic dancers as a recruiting enticement. The cooperation even led to a self-imposed postseason ban in 2016. 

If the NCAA handled other major violations with similar harsh punishments, then I don’t think Louisville would have a case to object. But the organization has time and again been inconsistent with its discipline.

The bigger brands have gotten a pass while Louisville got the harshest punishment on this side of the death penalty. It remains the only time in the NCAA’s history that a men’s basketball national championship has been vacated.

Former U of L athletics director Tom Jurich told The Courier Journal before being honored by the university in June that he believed there was a route to getting the banner back.

“I think cooler heads in the NCAA would prevail,” Jurich said. “There’s a lot of fantastic arguments for getting that thing back, because that was trash that they took that way.”

Mayor Craig Greenberg in that same interview said he’d be willing to help lead the charge, adding that it “would be great for the university and for the city and really for all the fans.”

(An aside: The Cardinals should also recognize their 2012 Final Four appearance that was vacated after the NCAA’s investigation.)

Meanwhile, the NCAA didn’t even sniff at Miami’s 2001 football championship despite disgraced booster Nevin Shapiro’s admission that he paid players in 2002.

North Carolina didn’t have its 2005 and 2009 men’s basketball titles questioned or even threatened despite having fake classes. 

Now, last week’s news that Michigan’s 2023 national football title is safe. The NCAA’s handling of Michigan and its sign-stealing scandal should be the final straw for U of L’s patience. 

The institution that’s supposed to dole out equal punishment didn’t give the Wolverines much of a punishment at all. And it’s not fair.

Their national title still stands in Ann Arbor like there was nothing wrong with how Connor Stalions helped them skirt the rules with an intricate network to steal opponents’ signs.

Head coach Sherrone Moore, who got his start on Louisville’s staff under Charlie Strong, was already set to sit out a self-imposed, two-game ban this season. Now he will be forced to sit out one game of the 2026 season. Ouch.

The NCAA’s 10-year, show-cause penalty on Jim Harbaugh should be renamed Just for Show, because Harbaugh, now the head coach of the Los Angeles Chargers, has no intention of ever returning to college football.

Yes, the potential $35 million-plus in fines handed down to Michigan is the most ever and signals a shift in potential future punishments from the NCAA. But the Wolverines generated more than $50 million in revenue from football ticket sales in the 2023-24 fiscal year alone, so please someone tell me how that fine is a deterrent.

Raising the banner doesn’t absolve Louisville from its transgressions. U of L absolutely paid a hefty price because of the scandal.

It ultimately lost Hall of Fame coach Rick Pitino because of it along with Jurich, the patriarch of the athletics department.

In truth, Louisville basketball has not quite been the same since the NCAA forced it to vacate the 2013 title in June 2017. The Cardinals have only made the NCAA Tournament twice since then and haven’t made it out of the first round.

U of L will never get those years back and will never be able to answer what if Pitino never left. But it can — and should — get back the banner it won.

Reach sports columnist C.L. Brown at clbrown1@gannett.com, follow him on X at @CLBrownHoops and subscribe to his newsletter at profile.courier-journal.com/newsletters/cl-browns-latest to make sure you never miss one of his columns.