LSU has appointed Verge Ausberry as its interim athletic director, giving him the authority to hire the next football coach.
Ausberry was previously suspended in 2021 for his role in mishandling sexual and physical abuse complaints against LSU athletes.
Despite calls for his termination at the time, Ausberry received a 30-day suspension before returning to his role.
Burying an abuse complaint and circumventing Title IX reporting policies should be disqualifying for any leadership position in athletics, let alone the head of the entire department.
Not at LSU!
As if its dumpster fire isn’t big enough already, LSU appointed Verge Ausberry as its interim athletic director Friday and gave him full authority to hire the school’s next football coach. The same Ausberry who was suspended by the school in March 2021 for his role in improperly handling complaints of sexual and physical abuse against LSU athletes.
“We are very excited,” John Carmouche, a member of LSU’s board of supervisors and chair of the school’s athletics committee, said during the announcement of Ausberry’s interim appointment.
“Verge is the ideal person to lead this department through this change,” Carmouche said. “From the time he arrived on campus as a football student-athlete, Verge has been associated with excellence and championships.”
And demeaning and marginalizing women. But hey! What’s an insult to all the women on campus, the female athletes in particular, when there’s a football program to restore.
‘I’m going to hire the best football coach there is,’ Ausberry said. ‘That’s our jobs. We’re going to go out there (and) we’re not going to let this program fail. LSU has to be in the playoffs every year in football.’
Football above all else at LSU
It’s this kind of attitude — football is king and nobody best get in its way — that got Ausberry in trouble and made LSU the subject of national condemnation and an extensive outside investigation just a few years ago.
USA TODAY reporting in late 2020 found that Ausberry and other officials in LSU’s athletic department ignored complaints against abusers on Tigers rosters and subjected their victims to further harm by known perpetrators. They also funneled the complaints they did acknowledge to another athletic department administrator rather than the school’s Title IX coordinator, as school policy required.
This prompted LSU to hire law firm Husch Blackwell to investigate the school, and it found systemic failure by Ausberry and other employees.
Ausberry, Husch Blackwell found, did not report that then-LSU wide receiver Drake Davis told him in a text message that he had punched his girlfriend. No other LSU official knew about the incident until two weeks later, when the woman, another LSU athlete, went to an athletic trainer because she was still in pain.
Davis eventually pleaded guilty to two criminal counts of battery.
Ausberry also was reported to a deputy Title IX coordinator for screaming at a female employee in the athletic department, but was never investigated, Husch Blackwell found. Ausberry tried to downplay the complaint, saying his relationship with the woman was like “brother-sister” and “lovehate.”
“We believe the University should consider appropriate discipline for Ausberry,” Husch Blackwell wrote in its March 2021 report, saying his inaction “could have led to catastrophic consequences.”
Instead, Ausberry and another athletic department employee were suspended without pay for 30 days. The “punishment” drew widespread condemnation, with the Louisiana Legislature’s Select Committee on Women and Children calling for any employee who mishandled abuse complaints to be fired.
“In order to restore trust, there must be consequences,” the select committee said in a formal letter at the time.
Ausberry chose not to protect women
There weren’t, of course, with Ausberry returning to his job as executive deputy athletics director. Now, less than five years later, he’s one of the most powerful men in a state that prizes football above all else. Certainly above respect and concern for women.
But tell me again why women don’t report their abuse.
Ausberry’s misdeeds were not minor or accidental. An LSU athlete told him he battered his girlfriend and Ausberry’s reaction was to turn a blind eye. Not express concern for the young woman or make sure she got proper medical attention. Her health and safety were inconsequential when compared with keeping a star football player on the field.
Will Ausberry hire a football coach with similarly bad judgment and disregard for women? What about the rest of the department? Ausberry punted when asked if he wants the job permanently, but it almost doesn’t matter. He’s in charge now, tasked with making decisions that affect LSU’s women athletes and, potentially, every woman on LSU’s campus. Can he be trusted to protect them? Or, at the very least, not put them in harm’s way? Not if his past actions are any guide.
Ausberry insists that LSU’s athletic department is “not broken.” But when a school with a track record of failing women elevates someone who has been careless with the health and safety of young women, it’s hard to see it as anything but. Still.
Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on social media @nrarmour.