LOUISVILLE, Ky. — After two disappointing seasons, the University of Louisville fired men’s basketball head coach Kenny Payne on Wednesday.
Payne, a former UofL player, ended his two years as head coach with a record of 12-52.
Despite outcry from fans all season long on social media, UofL Athletics Director Josh Heird said that’s not what pushed him to remove Payne.
“Once we got through all of the noise around the Arkansas State game and the Kentucky result, it felt like it would have been an emotional decision [to fire Payne then,” he told reporters Wednesday afternoon. “I understand how fans feel and people around the program feel, but it's my job to take the emotion out of it. [Only giving him] a year and a half would have been unprecedented.”
Payne has said he was given a team in rough shape and believed he could re-build the program, but after Tuesday's loss, said it would take three or four years.
“I kept looking for hope; was there something here? And there were a couple of glimpses of that,” Heird said. “Can this be sustained? Can we start to see some progression here? And then you take a look back and you reflect, and you say, ‘Hey I just didn’t see enough of that.’”
But Heird isn’t blind to the situation Payne was given. He said during Payne’s time as coach, there has been some progress.
“Kenny didn’t come in here with a clean slate, I understand that, and Chris [Mack] didn’t either,” he said. “For the first time in a number of years, whoever the head coach is that comes in here, I would presume, and that’s what I’m going to sell, is coming in here to a program that can immediately be successful.”
Search for the next coach
UofL is now conducting its third nationwide search for someone to lead the university’s men’s basketball program since 2018.
According to terms of the buyout in Payne's contract, which WHAS11 obtained through an Open Records Request, the school owes him $8 million. If Payne remained head coach until April 1, it would have dropped by $2 million.
When asked Wednesday afternoon if the university and Payne had negotiated a lower buyout, Heird didn’t give a clear answer. He did say the department was in contact with Payne’s representatives following Tuesday’s loss against North Carolina State and he has spoken with Payne himself.
Heird also said the university will not hire an outside firm to help in its latest search for a new head coach, but understands the challenges ahead.
“You have to create that enthusiasm for people to get on board and that's been difficult the last two years when you look at the win and loss record,” Heird said. “It's hard to say, 'Yeah I'm really invested in this program.' Winning cures all, but unfortunately, we haven't done much of that. This is still one of the best jobs in the country. We have to build that momentum with the fanbase. Whoever we hire has to build that connective tissue.”
The university is also looking for someone who has been a head coach and has shown they’ve built a program before.
Heird said the right candidate should be able to adapt to the everchanging world of college athletics and understand how to navigate the NIL landscape.
But most importantly, he said the next head coach should want to be at Louisville.
“Our fanbase is dying for this program to be successful, absolutely dying for this program to be successful,” Heird said. “We gotta have somebody who is dying to coach this basketball program. I mean they will crawl here to coach this basketball program.”
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