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Rutgers to hire new AD, Julie Hermann, in wake of Mike Rice scandal

Rutgers

On Wednesday, Rutgers will finally fill the void at athletic director, as they have hired Julie Hermann, who was most recently the second in command in the athletic department at Louisville, as their new AD. Hermann becomes just the third female athletic director at a BCS school, joining NC State’s Debbie Yow and Cal’s Sandy Barbour.

It’s significant. Rutgers will head into the Big Ten as the only program with a female athletic director and the only team with a black men’s basketball coach in Eddie Jordan.

Rutgers needed to hire a new AD after Tim Pernetti was fired in the wake of the Mike Rice scandal back in April. Rice lost his job when a video tape of him throwing basketballs and using gay slurs directed at his players surfaced. Pernetti eventually lost his job as well, in large part due to the fact that he initially allowed Rice to keep his job when he found out about the video all the way back in December.

But filling the AD and head coaching positions weren’t without their issues.

In one of the more embarrassing moments that the school has dealt with, Deadspin did some digging and discovered that Jordan, one of Rutgers’ prized graduates, wasn’t actually a graduate at all, as he never ended up completing his degree. Luckily for the Scarlett Knights, having a degree isn’t a requirement to be a head coach in New Jersey, so Jordan’s job, as of now, is safe.

We’ll see if that’s the case in a few years if Rutgers doesn’t win games in the Big Ten.

Even Hermann isn’t without skeletons in her closet. From Tom Luicci of the Newark Star-Ledger:

In the case of Hermann, the senior associate athletic director and senior woman administrator at the University of Louisville, a pregnancy discrimination lawsuit filed against the University of Tennessee when she was the head volleyball coach there is something Rutgers officials would have to reconcile if she is hired.

Assistant volleyball coach Ginger Hineline won her $150,000 suit against the school in 1997.

According to the Knoxville (Tenn.) News-Sentinel’s reporting on the suit, Hineline said she asked Hermann if she would lose her job if she became pregnant and that Hermann responded by saying “I hope it doesn’t come to that.”

“Julie and I had various conversations that discouraged me from becoming pregnant,” the paper quoted Hineline as saying.


Rutgers being Rutgers.

You can find Rob on twitter @RobDauster.