What is Josh Heird Looking For in a Louisville Coaching Candidate?

The athletic director for the Cardinals now faces the task of finding someone to replace Kenny Payne as men's basketball head coach.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - For the second time in as many years, Josh Heird has a monumental decision on his hands regarding the Louisville men's basketball program.

On Wednesday, the athletic director for the Cardinals announced that Kenny Payne "will not return next season" as head coach. Louisville recently concluded a disastrous 8-24 campaign in what was Payne's second year at the helm, and Payne ends his tenure at his alma mater with a 12-52 overall record.

"After an extremely difficult first season, I was hopeful I could see enough progress to warrant the opportunity for him to continue to lead this program for years to come. Unfortunately, while there have been brief moments of progress, ultimately I did not see the sustained progression I was looking for. In the end, while this decision was incredibly difficult to make because of who Kenny is and what he means to our university, I do feel it is the correct decision for this program and this department."

Now, Heird has the arduous task of hiring the next the coach. Unlike the last search when he was an interim athletic director, he will not utilize a search firm as part of his decision. Instead, there will be "two, maybe three" people that he will lean on during the process in what he calls an "advisory committee."

Unlike the previous two coaching searches for Louisville, there isn't a candidate in which everyone in the college basketball realm points to as "the guy" for the Cardinals to pursue. Sure, there are a handful of favorites for the position, but in the roughly 24 hours since the job officially opened up, and really for the last several months when it was obvious that UofL would move on from Payne, several candidates have been linked to the position.

It's a position in which Heird - and all of the university leadership that assists him - has to nail. Given how the much the program has been subject to over the last several years, ranging from various scandals under previous coaching regimes to the woefully inept on-court performances under Payne, Louisville runs the risk of becoming the next Indiana basketball or Nebraska football: a program that has failed to attain modern relevancy and is continuing to cling onto past glory.

But even with all that Louisville basketball has gone through in recent years, it's still very much a destination job. Rich history, top tier facilities, near unlimited resources, and a passionate fanbase make it undoubtedly a top ten job in all of college basketball.

Related: Louisville Men's Basketball Head Coach Hot Board 1.0

So what exactly is he looking for in a candidate? Speaking Wednesday after Payne's dismissal was made official, Heird provided some insight as to how he will conduct his search.

First and foremost, he is looking for a much more established coach this time around. While he didn't explicitly rule out hiring candidates who are lean on overall experience as a head coach, Heird mentioned that something he is looking for "the ability to show that they've built a program that they've seen some success." He also said it would be "hard to dip into somebody who hasn't been a head coach" at all.

Building off of that point, Heird implied that the next coach, regardless of who it is, must have a winning pedigree and very much has expectations to win right off the bat. While he didn't put an explicit number on how many wins the new coach will need in year one, there needs to be a significant upgrade in the on-court product from what Louisville fans saw during the Payne era. Not only to appease fans, but because their bottom line needs it.

"There is a handful of programs around this country that you don't truly have the luxury of time," he said. "There’s a lot of programs that you can say, hey, you know, we're going to be okay, we've made some progress so let's give this thing another go next year. The impact on the revenue to the athletic department, from an upside/downside standpoint isn't as significant as it is here. These are seven and eight figure calculations when it comes to the success of this program. The head coach coming in here needs to understand, that for this athletic department to be healthy, this basketball program must be successful.”

On top of that, Heird is looking for someone who completely and fully understands the magnitude of the Louisville job. Here, you are more than just a basketball coach. In one of the 30 largest cities in the United States, you are the guy in town. Being the head coach of the Louisville men's basketball program means that you must be intertwined with the fans, media, and community as a whole. This is a component of the job that Louisville's last two head coaches, Chris Mack and Kenny Payne, never seemed to fully embrace or even understand.

"That’s going to be one of the pieces that’s critically important to me with whoever we hire is that they have the ability to create that connective tissue with our fanbase," Heird said. "Our fanbase is dying for this program to be successful. Absolutely dying for this program to be successful. That will be a very, very direct question with whoever I’m looking at as far as filling this head coaching role. Can you manage the enormity of this position? Because it’s big. It’s really big, and there’s a lot more complexities to it. It’s a lot more than coaching basketball.”

Additionally, Heird is looking for someone who is willing to adapt to the ever-changing collegiate athletics landscape. Early on in his tenure, Payne appeared to be someone who was open to embracing name, image, likeness and the transfer portal, but he eventually displayed an unwillingness to evolve. Having an open mind to the modern college basketball landscape, and having a great relationship with 502Circle, will be a must. Especially considering the program will off of probation later this year on Nov. 2.

"They’ve got to understand how to navigate the NIL landscape – that one’s going to be extremely important," Heird said. "They have to show and communicate the ability to adapt with the ever-changing world of college athletics right now. The guardrails we’re operating from are going to be different a year from now."

Speaking of probation, Heird will once again be putting a premium on candidates with high character and integrity, and don't have proverbial rap sheet with the NCAA. Louisville has been scandal-plagued for nearly a decade, and Heird says he does not want to hire anyone that could continue this trend, or has a bad reputation.

“I think I typically have a high threshold from an integrity standpoint," he said. "But I think that threshold needs to be elevated based on the past that we've experienced here. I don't want to look at just the candidate. I think it's the combination of our history, to say, hey, is there anybody out there that is worth looking at, and you know, what does their past look like?

"So, you know, never say never. But, you know, I think most of the people in this room understand my expectations around this athletic department and the people that work in this athletic department.

Finally, and this may seem like something that should be a given, but Heird wants his next head coach to actually want to be the head man at Louisville. This mainly stems from the fact that Payne had to be convinced by those around him to take the Louisville job in 2022, as well as rumors that Payne didn't want the job to begin with. Heird wants a coach that is as passionate about the job as the fans are.

"At the end of the day, one of the things that I think is more important than anything else, we’ve got to have somebody who is dying to coach this basketball program," he said. "I mean, they will crawl here to coach this basketball program because that’s how much it means to them."

(Photo via Jared Anderson - Louisville Report)

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