On Tuesday’s election night, while the nation was focused on the history being made in New York, New Jersey and Virginia, history was also made in Baton Rouge when Verge Ausberry became the first Black athletics director in LSU history.
Ausberry is a child of Louisiana.
He grew up in the city of New Iberia, roughly 90 minutes outside of Baton Rouge. He played middle linebacker for the Tigers for four years and then worked in the LSU athletics department for the last 24 years, including the past six years as the executive deputy athletic director.
Ausberry became the interim AD after former head football coach Brian Kelly and AD Scott Woodward were both fired after grumblings from LSU fans and supporters, a decision which became political after the state’s governor, Jeff Landry, publicly criticized Woodward’s job in hiring football coaches and the large, multimillion dollar buyouts he agreed to.
But the decision to make Ausberry the full-time AD wasn’t made until the university’s Board of Supervisors named a new system president in Wade Rousse, and Rousse made the immediate decision to give the LSU-lifer the full-time title.
And with these appointments came a new structure in which Ausberry will report directly to Rousse.
Their first job? To find a new head football coach.
“We’ll be working close together,” Ausberry said. “He’ll be helping us, joining us, consulting with us on this football search. That’s what we needed. Talking to people out there – agents and candidates and other people in the business – they were all asking, ‘Who’s going to be the president? Who do we report to? Who is the AD?’ You had to make them feel comfortable in what we were doing.”
But it’s not just his football experience that makes Ausberry the right man for the role as he is educated, paid his dues and learned the job from the bottom up.
After graduating with a BS in education in 1990, he earned his master of education in 1992 and his specialist in higher education administration in 2004.
And his education continues as he is currently a doctoral candidate in higher education administration.
Professionally, he began as an intern in LSU’s compliance office, became an academic adviser for players and then moved over to the Tiger Athletic Foundation. Then he shifted into the administration and worked his way up through different sports and responsibilities until becoming the executive deputy AD, helping the president’s office with governmental and external affairs.
And now, over two decades after first starting his career at LSU, Verge Ausberry has made university history.
