By GLENN GUILBEAU, Tiger Rag Editor
Last Monday, LSU introduced a new basketball coach in Will Wade in unprecedented fashion in modern college athletics history. Because LSU had just rightfully fired Wade four years ago for voluminous and reckless violations of NCAA recruiting rules, and for not cooperating with the NCAA or LSU investigations of his program and lying about it throughout his five years on the job.
But LSU fans then and now, and many LSU administrators now love Will Wade passionately and rabidly and with a vengeance. And he loves them and LSU right back. This is why he lied to North Carolina State and left a clearly better basketball program after one year.
Wade’s introductory press conference at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center on March 30 sounded and reverberated more like the Final Four pep rally LSU held in the same arena the last time the Tigers went to the Final Four – 20 years ago this week under coach John Brady.
There were engineered flames on Monday, music from the LSU band, cheerleaders and hundreds of fans welcoming Wade back, not as a rehabilitated former NCAA criminal, but as a conquering hero returning home.
But there was something else going on at this pep rally/press conference off the main stage.
New LSU athletic director Verge Ausberry – just promoted from executive deputy AD last October after a coup d’e’tat involving Governor Jeff Landry that removed athletic director Scott Woodward – was exerting his strength. This was on the heels of new LSU president Wade Rousse basically hiring a new executive deputy AD the previous Thursday.
Technically, Ausberry hired McNeese State athletic director Heath Schroyer as one of his deputies. But Schroyer worked under Rousse at McNeese and hired Wade in 2023 – a year after LSU fired him. That’s too strong a connection to digest and think Ausberry just happened to want to hire Schroyer.
In the past at LSU, the athletic director usually hired or promoted someone to deputy more autonomously. Former LSU athletic director Skip Bertman, for example, hired American University athletic director Dan Radakovich to be his deputy in May of 2001. Radakovich and Bertman had Miami roots.
And Bertman brought in Ausberry, a former LSU linebacker who had worked for the Tiger Athletic Foundation fund-raising arm and at LSU’s Academic Center for Athletes, to the athletic department. Former LSU ADs Joe Dean, Bob Brodhead, Joe Alleva and Scott Woodward also hired their staffs virtually autonomously
Rousse, who was just named LSU president last November 4, Schroyer and Wade – one job removed at NC State – are part of a McNeese Migration to LSU. And Rousse also gave Schroyer an interesting long version title – “Senior Deputy Athletic Director and Executive Director of External Relations of the LSU System.”
That’s a hefty title at LSU for someone from McNeese. Yes, Schroyer did a great job at McNeese, but it is a pretty small school and athletic department compared to LSU.
Before Wade stepped to the podium as the crowd of LSU’s major donors, Board of Supervisors members, various other powers that be, dignitaries and media members gathered and hobnobbed about, Schroyer was working the room big time.
And remember when Rousse first became LSU’s president on Nov. 4? He may have had it in his mind then to hire Schroyer as LSU’s athletic director, judging by his erratic behavior at the time. Ausberry at first just had the the interim athletic director title after replacing Woodward on Oct. 30.
“We’ll assess the situation,” Rousse told Piper Hutchinson of the Louisiana Illuminator/Tiger Rag on Nov. 5 when asked if Ausberry will become THE athletic director. “I can’t make a very good decision after being on the job for eight hours.”
When asked about Ausberry’s contract, Rousse said, “We’re supposed to announce that in days, if we’re going to go down that road.”
If you go down that road? You got someone else in mind?
Rousse was obviously not ready to name Ausberry THE athletic director. He did say he was going to take the interim tag off, but during a WWL Radio appearance later on Nov. 5, Rousse said that Ausberry “is the acting athletic director.”
Uh, “acting” athletic director and “interim” athletic director are one in the same.
Rousse came to LSU highly recommended as an extremely talented financier and fund raiser, which LSU needs badly at the moment as it projects to be more than $30 million in debt in the midst of a firing (Brian Kelly, Matt McMahon) and hiring (Lane Kiffin, Will Wade) craze. And Schroyer is also a uniquely skilled fund raiser who proved himself tremendously with Wade amid post Hurricane Laura at McNeese in 2021.
But in the end, LSU’s real powers that be got to Rousse and explained to him how things work. And on Thursday, Nov. 6, LSU announced that Ausberry was THE athletic director.
And four months later, here’s Rousse’s and Wade’s guy – Heath Schroyer – working the room.
Then during the press conference, Wade said this:
“I can’t even express in words what Dr. Rousse and the administration, everybody has meant to me,” he said. “I want to thank Governor Jeff Landry. I want to thank our wonderful LSU Board, many of whom are here today, and our great chairman, Lee Mallett.”
Landry and newly Landry-appointed Board chairman Lee Mallett – a friend of Schroyer and Wade from their McNeese days – tried to hire Wade last year to LSU, but Woodward blocked it. Ausberry also didn’t want that hire at that time. Perhaps “The General,” as LSU fans call Wade, remembers that as a slight. Wade requested that Schroyer be in place before he would accept the LSU job this time. He likely did not make that request via Ausberry – probably higher.
On Thursday, March 26, when confirmation of Wade becoming LSU’s coach happened, it was shortly after Schroyer coming to LSU was confirmed.
“I want to thank Dr. Rousse, who I’ve worked with before,” Wade went on. “We’re going to work well together again, get that alignment. We’ve got Heath Schroyer here – same chain of command, as Doc (Rousse) likes to say.”
Same chain of command? Did Wade forget that Ausberry is the AD in the chain of command? He just replaced him with Schroyer.
And Wade never once mentioned Ausberry in his press conference as new LSU football coach Lane Kiffin did at his introductory press conference on Dec. 1 multiple times. Ausberry hired Kiffin. Ausberry may have only assisted in the hiring of Wade. And he may have only officially hired Schroyer.
“And certainly I want to thank our wonderful athletic administration and everybody involved in the athletic administration,” Wade said, but there was never a mention of Ausberry by name.
When Ausberry spoke at the podium, he mentioned Wade, Mallett and Rousse, but no Schroyer.
After the press conference, something else happened. Ausberry held his own impromptu press conference as several reporters gathered around him off stage right.
“I will oversee the whole athletic department,” he said. Then he listed his lieutenants who will be in charge of rivers of new revenue streams for NIL packages and to pay for Kiffin’s $91 million contract over seven years, former football coach Brian Kelly’s $54 million buyout, Wade’s $30 million contract over seven years, Wade’s $4 million buyout to North Carolina State and just-fired basketball coach Matt McMahon’s $8 million buyout.
Then Ausberry said Schroyer will be “the new lead administrator for the men’s basketball team” after proving himself at McNeese as a talented fund raiser.
That wasn’t new. The first story about Schroyer, who is a former men’s basketball coach, coming to LSU as an assistant athletic director by Tiger Rag on March 13 said he would work with basketball.
Maybe Ausberry just wanted to make it clear.
“I think that’s the thing Heath does,” Ausberry said. “He brings a lot of new money to us – a new donor pool to us. It gives us the southwest part of the state, where he’s from. And he can work some angles down there that we haven’t been able to get to in a long time.”
Sure doesn’t sound like the “chain of command” Wade spoke about.
“It’s great alignment,” Ausberry said. “It makes my world easier.”
Ausberry also listed his other administration lieutenants of fund raising by sport that will make his “world easier.”
FOOTBALL – Executive deputy athletic director and chief operating officer Julie Cromer will continue to oversee football NIL fund raising along with chief revenue officer Clay Harris as the point person for football money. Also not new. Cromer is also over Schroyer, in case Wade hasn’t had a chance to look at the staff directory yet.
BASEBALL – Senior associate athletic director for facilities and events Dan Gaston will remain overseeing baseball, but Ausberry said he has added NIL money raising for baseball to the duties of deputy AD/chief stragety officer/media relations Zach Greenwell. And Greenwell will also lead NIL work for the women’s basketball team that will continue to be overseen by senior associate athletic director Miriam Segar.
“In addition to overseeing revenue share and NIL operations for the full department, I will be spending additional time assisting with women’s basketball and baseball with their NIL fund raising, but also their NIL strategy,” Greenwell told Tiger Rag Thursday. “The baseball and women’s basketball piece is new for me in this newest reorganization, although I was already overseeing revenue share and NIL strategy for the full department.”
Greenwell also explained that the athletic department has not been completely restructured as some reports had.
“There are some reorganized duties, but all of the sports administrators, except Heath Schroyer, were already the lead administrators for those sports,” he said. “Julie Cromer (football), Dan Gaston (baseball) and Miriam Segar (women’s basketball) with those sports was already the case.”
The $20.5 million revenue share formula that goes directly to athletes also remains as previously reported – 75 percent of the $20.5 million for football, 15 percent for men’s basketball, five percent for women’s basketball and the remaining sports divvying up the remaining five percent.
Tony Vitello and Jay Johnson have the last 3 national championships in college baseball. Will they be the first 2 to jump immediately from college to MLB manager jobs? COLUMN:https://t.co/BRzSMknaB8
— Glenn Guilbeau (@SportBeatTweet) April 3, 2026
Ausberry did not list the other sports on Monday. And it is unique that LSU did not put out a formal release of this reshuffling. But LSU has been doing things of late by the seat of its pants, which have pockets spending much more money than they are stuffing at the moment. But there is a plan for major NIL and roster fund raising that Rouse, Schroyer and Ausberry – not necessarily in that order – will be key to that end.
“We’re going to be out there beating the streets,” Ausberry said. “My job is to generate revenue for the whole department and make sure this department is in alignment – the president’s office, the the board and everything else, so that we win in every sport.”
Who wins in the sometimes volatile, Louisiana Governor’s office, LSU Board of Supervisors’ office, LSU President’s office, LSU Chancellor’s office and LSU athletic department hierarchy remains to be seen.
But it should be noted that when newbie LSU chancellor Sean O’Keefe clashed with veteran LSU athletic director Skip Bertman from 2005-08, Bertman won.
Ausberry has been entrenched since the 1990s in LSU Athletics, LSU Politics and State Capitol Politics – which are all one in the same at times like these. And all these McNeese State East greenhorns to LSU – no matter how genius they were at McNeese – better know where and with whom they’re dealing.
My money’s on Ausberry.
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