LOUISVILLE, KY. — The Kentucky Derby has become this over-the-top spectacle that revolves around the so-called “greatest two minutes in sports.” It’s the Super Bowl of horse racing. So the locals decided to claim the Kentucky Oaks, which happens one day before the Derby, as their own. Oaks Day is huge in Louisville. But in 2010, new Louisville football coach Charlie Strong wanted to get as far from Churchill Downs as possible. That day, Cis Gruebbel was preparing for a fundraising event, aptly named Bourbon & Bowties, for Louisville’s Kosair Children’s Hospital. Strong and his family wanted to tour the facility. They ended up staying three hours. “He didn’t just connect with the kids,” Gruebbel, Kosair’s chief nursing officer, told the American-Statesman during a visit in her office. “He let them take pictures and was in no hurry whatsoever. I thought, ‘Wow, this guy is really here for these kids.’ ” On the initial tour, Strong met Judy Eberenz, one of the biggest Kentucky fans you’ll ever find. Her entire office screams Big Blue Nation. She watches over 48 pediatric beds as a Kosair nurse manager. Some kids have heart conditions; some were burned. Many need surgery. Right then and there, the new Louisville coach and “Kentucky Judy” hit it off. Strong would sneak up to the hospital and visit kids when nobody knew. He brought No. 1 foam fingers, Cardinals swag and those Popeye biceps, unbelievable for a typical 53-year-old man. He also wanted to give those kids an outlet to forget about their medical problems. That’s why Gruebbel helped Strong organize a football clinic every spring specifically for young cancer survivors. In 2012, there were about 35 kids running around Trager Center, Louisville’s indoor practice facility. The next year, there were 75. Strong wants his players to log a certain number of community service hours every year. That’s why most of the Cardinals’ football team came and participated as well. “For three or four hours, I was just able to let these kids go be a kid before they have to go back and go through the pain they have to go through,” Strong said. What prompts a football coach, and a father of two girls, to be that giving of his time? “Being a dad and having kids of his own, I think he was looking for a connection and a way to give back and to bring that kind of energy,” Eberenz said. “He brought so much energy to people that really needed it.” Eberenz had a relative in Kosair at one point, Nathan, who had a kidney removed at just 8 weeks old. The family made bracelets, and Strong wore the light blue band at Louisville games. Nathan will be 2 this May. Now, even though he has left Louisville and is one month into his job at Texas, Strong still wears another blue bracelet in support of Tyler, the son of an assistant coach’s fraternity brother. Now, Ty, this little man was something else. The 13-year-old loved video games and bragged about the strength of the Florida Gators right to Strong’s face. They went back and forth all the time. The day Louisville played Rutgers in 2012, Strong called to check on him. If the Cardinals won, they were headed to a BCS bowl. “I said, ‘You’ve got a lot on your mind,’ ” Gruebbel said. “He said, ‘Ty’s on my mind today.’ ” Louisville won that night and advanced to the Sugar Bowl to face Ty’s Gators. Strong and Ty made a bet; the loser had to sign a Sugar Bowl shirt. Ty’s condition worsened, though, and he was moved to intensive care. Strong, strength coach Pat Moorer and some others went to see him. “I took the T-shirt and kind of laid it across his body,” Strong said, “but he ended up passing away.” This is the type of man who now leads the Longhorns. “I don’t know about his youth or anything else,” Gruebbel said, “but I just know he was unbelievable for this hospital.” Sitting next to Gruebbel, Kosair public relations director Maggie Skibba Roetker just blurted out, “He’s the real deal.” Secret Santa? This past Christmas, the Louisville Courier-Journal reported incredible news. The newspaper said that “a Louisville sports figure” walked into a Wal-Mart on the southwestern side of town and paid off $13,000 in layaways for 169 families. Store employees spent 10 hours on the phone the next day calling stunned customers. “I got to tell the first person what we were doing,” assistant store manager Connie Smith told the American-Statesman. “They cried; I cried. It was very emotional, especially when you hear some of their stories.” Two sources denied it was Strong’s handiwork — with a wink, of course. “As far as you know,” Smith said. “You’ll never get it from me.” St. Stephen Church can also be found on the west side of Louisville. According to U.S. census data, the predominantly black church is in a ZIP code where the average household income is $19,742. Almost half the population in that ZIP code lives below the poverty line. Strong’s Louisville home was on the other end of town, next to a golf course. Several Louisville coaches and administrators live there, actually. It’s a 22-mile drive from the east side to the west. Strong’s pastor, Kevin Cosby, is also a member of the University of Louisville Board of Trustees. By several accounts, Cosby is the most prominent black minister in town. Cosby said Strong was no mere spectator at church, but an avid participant. Strong believes his gifts and opportunities come from God, Cosby said. It also sent a powerful message to see a black celebrity sitting in church every Sunday with his family. “For him to come to the hood, so to speak, and his wife and children to come to the hood,” Cosby said, “to have a football coach sitting in the pews with someone who may have a GED or someone who is in recovery or some kid who has sagging pants, just his presence is affirming to the people of the community.” ‘You can have him!’ Over on the Louisville campus, that’s not exactly the reaction you get. “Oh, you’re from Austin?” one Louisville athletic department person said. “You can have him!” Another person said, “Good luck working with that guy.” Some Louisville officials, none of whom wanted his or her name used, are glad Strong is gone. He’s Texas’ problem now, they said, even though Strong completely turned around a losing program. The Cardinals were 15-21 in the three years before Strong’s arrival. He went 37-15 in four seasons, won two Big East titles and led Louisville to a convincing win over No. 4 Florida in the Sugar Bowl at the end of the 2012 season. He’s the only coach in Louisville history to win three bowl games. That feeling stems from two main points. First, the perceptions about Strong somewhat ring true, according to Louisville people. All he cares about is football, being in the locker room and being around his team. That and whatever interests him personally — like his family or the Kosair Children’s Hospital. According to Louisville athletic department personnel, he simply doesn’t care about non-football-related things, which is how the Strong-hates-the-media narrative sprang to life. Various examples have been documented, but Strong said last week that it’s a misconception that he doesn’t like the media. Getting Strong to help promote the department wasn’t always easy, either. Two department officials said Strong bristled at being asked to sign 500 bottles of Maker’s Mark bourbon, which the school then sold as a fundraiser, generating $1 million. Maker’s Mark has sold souvenir bottles of Louisville and Kentucky coaches for years. The money went straight into improvements in the football academic center. Strong did not want to be associated with alcohol, even though the Maker’s Mark deal had long been an accepted marketing tool. Bourbon is so ingrained in the Bluegrass State, there’s an eye-catching billboard for a bourboncompany on Interstate 65 that gums up a picturesque highway view of Papa John’s Cardinals Stadium. And second, Louisville officials were truly blindsided by the fact that Strong left for Texas, long considered one of the top five jobs in college football. Louisville Athletic Director Tom Jurich could not be reached, despite multiple attempts with voice mails and messages through the school’s media relations office. “There are only so many jobs like this, that when you have an opportunity to go to the best, you have to put your name in it and see where it’s going to take you,” Strong said at his introductory news conference Jan. 6. Based on comments like that, the perception around the Louisville athletic department is that Strong pursued Texas Athletic Director Steve Patterson, not the other way around, almost as if he couldn’t wait to leave Louisville. And maybe he did. There’s a photo floating around the department showing that Strong had already cleaned out his office and staff locker that Saturday morning while everyone waited on Jurich to return from Colorado. If Strong’s mind was already made up, they wonder, why make Jurich fly home so suddenly? Two Texas sources said Strong did not actively court Patterson as Louisville people believe. Essentially, Louisville has a broken heart. Cardinals fans got over it quickly, though. When new coach Bobby Petri-no was introduced at a home basketball game at the downtown KFC Yum Center, Instagram videos show the place going crazy. “Now, the academic thing is legit,” one Louisville official said about Strong. “He is all over those kids about school.” Call the ‘Bounty Hunter’ When Strong came to Louisville before the 2010 season, the football team was a mess academically. The previous staff was let go two days after Thanksgiving in 2009. “Long story short, we had 50 guys who were under a 2.0 GPA that semester,” said linebackers coach Brian Jean-Mary, who has followed Strong to Texas. During the 2009-10 school year, the Cardinals’ Academic Progress Rate was 869, which dropped their multi-year average to 908. The NCAA-mandated minimum is 925. As a result, Strong lost three scholarships for the 2011 recruiting class. You want to get a coach’s attention? Start taking away scholarships. It wasn’t Strong’s fault, but it was suddenly his problem. “Coach Strong really raised the academic bar for our football team, setting a high standard the minute he became coach,” university President James Ramsey said. Strong started having meetings at 8:30 a.m. every Thursday with his coaches and assistant athletic director Justin Ruffin, who arrived at Louisville about the same time Strong did. “He set a goal that spring that the team had to be over a 2.6 GPA as a total,” Jean-Mary said. “He held everybody accountable to that, and that was a driving force behind our success academically.” They talked about who was going to class and who wasn’t. Sometimes, Strong would stop the meeting, pick up the phone and call the player immediately wanting answers. Often, that player would magically appear outside Strong’s office ready to give his side of the story, Ruffin said. If the staff didn’t like the situation, Moor-er took the initiative to find players and seek answers. They nicknamed him “The Bounty Hunter.” Louisville football players changed their mindset rather expeditiously. “I think maybe the first staff meeting was two hours,” Ruffin said. “Then, it was an hour and a half. After that, we could start rolling through it because there wasn’t as much bad news.” By the time Louisville reached the Sugar Bowl, 48 players out of 105 had a 3.0 GPA. In Strong’s time at Louisville, 93 of 99 players who came through the program either graduated or were on track to do so. Three of the remaining six were playing in the NFL. That leaves just three out of 99. Can’t save them all, though Strong will try. Senior associate athletic director Marvin Mitchell said it was the best stretch of academic success he’s seen in 14 years at Louisville. “Everything from class attendance to getting assignments turned in on time to having fewer calls than I’ve ever had about any football player academically, whether it’s acting up in class or being late,” Mitchell said. “It was just a very good time for us. “They are going to stress academics,” he added. “It’s going to be in the guys’ faces every day.” A young Nick Saban? If you’ve ever met a true horseman, you know they don’t mess around, just like Strong. Horse racing is a serious business, just like college football. Strong has been good friends with Seth Hancock of Claiborne Farm for more than a decade. Hancock watched over legendary Triple Crown winner Secretariat during his breeding days from the end of his racing career in 1973 until the horse’s death in 1989. So what does Strong know about horse racing? “He might be able to tell you they have four legs and they can run fast,” said Walker Hancock, Seth’s son. Seth Hancock, another longtime Kentucky fan, thought so highly of Strong, he called Wildcats Athletic Director Mitch Barnhart and pushed him to hire Strong before the 2003 season. Barnhart hired Rich Brooks instead. Strong wound up helping Walker Hancock land a job in the equipment room at Florida. Walker Hancock said he went to Florida primarily because of its equine program. In Walker’s two seasons in Gainesville, the Gators won the 2008 national championship and played in the Sugar Bowl after the 2009 season. “He was like a father figure to all those guys, every single one of them,” Walker Hancock said. Seth Hancock said Strong is focused on two things: his football and his family. “He doesn’t play golf; he doesn’t play the stock market; he doesn’t go fishing,” Hancock said. “Y’all hired a hell of a man. I know you hired a great human being. “In my eyes,” he added, “and I know I’m prejudiced, Texas got an eight-year younger version of Nick Saban.” Allan Lavin, general manager at Longfield Farm, feels the same way. Lavin developed a friendship with Strong when Hancock initially let him tag along to Louisville practices. Lavin said he has a huge range of emotions about Strong leaving for the Longhorns. “Texas is Texas, and I get it,” Lavin said. “There would have been a very few number of places he would have left for, and I don’t think he was looking to leave. He wasn’t looking for greener grass, but Texas is Texas.” So what kind of coach is Texas getting? Now this gets Lavin really going. Go put in the tape of the Sugar Bowl win over Florida. That was a physical beatdown, he said. Lavin said if you asked Texas fans if they’d take the coach who beat Miami and Florida, hands would fly up all around the room, right? “He’s a winner. He’s old school, and he’s honest,” Lavin said. “In our business, he’s a 6-5 favorite. He’s even money. He’s a winner. I’d be shocked if he’s not successful. Not surprised, but shocked.”
The more learn about CS the more I like him, but he will be judged by winning games and hopefully dominating OU. It will be years before we know if he was the right guy for UT.
Sounds like we've brought a fine man to Austin. He's the kind of guy you want to root for. I hope fans have patience while he rights the ship. 2013 brought a small recruiting class to UT, he got a late start on 2014 and 2015. There will be a lot of talent graduating in the next two years.
Great read! Thanks for posting that article. It confirms for me that we have the right guy to get the program turned around. He'll spend his time on football, the X's and O's, and keeping the players eligible instead of schmoozing BMDs and taking every opportunity to put is face in the limelight. We made a very good hire!
He is the right guy. We need to support him. His wins and losses will be determined to some degree on how well the QB plays. That's a fact of College Football. By having a strong D it helps mitigate the dice roll on QB selection somewhat so I like our odds.
One thing I think we can be pretty sure of under Charlie Strong is a stout defense that’s disciplined and tough.
Since his hiring we've heard immense praise and great stories from lifetime real winners. Men that have accomplished amazing feats in very competitive arenas. I'll take those guys' word for it over those lower-level whiners who are afraid to disclose their identity when slamming the man. Texas Strong!
Great read. Saw it some days back. Texas has a coach who is most appreciative and grateful, and extends to everyone on the staff and program that same character, and expectation that they recognize the same values in themselves and others. He leads by example. And I think each and every win will be fully appreciated. Nothing for granted. Everything to be grateful for. As with each and every day of any of our lives.
