BATON ROUGE ? The best run of an athletic director in LSU history will be drawing to a close in about four months. Skip Bertman is living pretty large these days. There he was Saturday shaking hands and hugging with former two-time LSU All-American and 1991 national player of the year Shaquille O'Neal and 2006 Final Four hero Tyrus Thomas. They were off for the NBA All-Star break and took in the LSU-Kentucky game at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center. LSU lost 67-63, but for a change the game had some atmosphere to it. Former coach Dale Brown, who knew something about making a game an event, was on hand as well. Bertman, who will be 70 in May, has been and will be consulting with Brown as he searches for a new basketball coach whom he hopes can restore some consistent feeling and attendance at LSU home basketball games. There is not a person at LSU more qualified to hire a coach than Bertman, and that is why Bertman and not president John Lombardi is performing this hire. Lombardi, contrary to popular belief in media circles, did not fire men's basketball coach John Brady just over a week ago and will not be nearly as involved in the hiring of the next coach as will Bertman. Lombardi will do as college presidents and chancellors should do with regard to a successful athletic program ? oversee and do not overtly interfere. Yes, Lombardi was in on the hirings of Steve Spurrier in 1989 and Billy Donovan in 1996 at Florida, which is everything every Southeastern Conference athletic department wants to be because of those two hires. Spurrier and Donovan did at Florida in football and basketball what Bertman did at LSU in baseball. But Lombardi acted as an overseer in those hires as well. "If I feel like something is going wrong, I would step in," Lombardi said. "But with Skip Bertman, I don't need to do that." Lombardi also has more important things to do. He is president. Former LSU chancellor Sean O'Keefe felt the need to often step into the athletic realm at LSU despite his lack of experience in that field and other things to do. That is one of the many reasons why he is no longer at LSU. O'Keefe trumpeted some charges against Bertman's baseball program and athletic department two years ago that amounted to little. He messed with Skip, and he was out of there like so many SEC batters over the years when faced with Bertman's pitching staff. Bertman has a lot of friends in powerful positions at and around LSU who like what Bertman has done for LSU as athletic director since 2001. Les Miles, the man Bertman hired to replace national champion coach Nick Saban in 2005, won the 2007 national title and is as popular if not more than was Saban. Many criticized Bertman's hiring of Miles at the time, including me. We were wrong. Bertman just liked Miles, who is hard not to like and that is obviously working. Bertman has a feel for coaches. Unlike today's corporate athletic director, Bertman was a coach. Walking around with Bertman at the Assembly Center Saturday was women's basketball coach Van Chancellor, a Bertman contemporary at the age of 64 who even sort of looks like him. Chancellor, like Bertman, is also a masterful coach with a fist full of championship rings. Bertman hired Chancellor last April following the Pokey Chatman scandal that Bertman weathered like so many ticket price increases he's been able to withstand. That hire was also criticized, including by people at LSU. Chancellor was too old. He hadn't coached college in a decade. How is he going to recruit? Chancellor just handed No. 1 Tennessee and coach Pat Summitt one of their worst beatings at home in history last Thursday night. Chancellor has beaten Summitt as much as anyone. LSU won its 13th straight Sunday over Ole Miss He looks like the man who will win LSU's first Final Four game ? men or women. He can flat coach. The women are actually running plays now in addition to the motion offense. Someone else can recruit for him. Bertman also hired baseball coach Paul Mainieri, who not only signs great players but gets them to campus and develops them. Look for that team to do some great things this season and look for Bertman's hire of Mainieri to erase his only major mistake as LSU's athletic director ? the hiring of Smoke Laval as baseball coach. Bertman will not go far after his official last day as athletic director on June 30. He will remain as athletic director emeritus for two years and continue to raise money. He may consider a third career as a one-man search committee for coaches. Link To Original Article
