LSU expected to name Skip Bertman athletic director

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) _ Baseball coach Skip Bertman will probably be LSU's next athletic director, Chancellor Mark Emmert says. <br><br>``I've spoken with Skip and things have gone extremely well,

Wednesday, January 3rd 2001, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) _ Baseball coach Skip Bertman will probably be LSU's next athletic director, Chancellor Mark Emmert says.

``I've spoken with Skip and things have gone extremely well, but I still have a few people to talk with and some odds and ends to work out,'' Emmert said Tuesday night. ``We have some things to work out as far as the transition. It's not finished, but Coach Bertman is the front-runner.''

Bertman, who has been baseball coach since 1984 and won his fifth national championship last June, just began talks with Emmert over the last week.

The LSU Board of Supervisors voted in August to pay Bertman, 62, $200,000 next year as baseball coach, with a total package of $450,000, and then give him a two-year contract as assistant athletic director before he retired.

Now, the plan is to have Bertman coach his last season with the Tigers and perhaps share athletic director responsibility with recently named interim Athletic Director Jerry Baudin until the season is over.

Then he would become permanent athletic director, Emmert told the Advocate in Baton Rouge. ``We don't have a specific time frame worked out yet. A lot of our appointments, like myself, are year to year. It would probably be a one-year contract.''

Former Athletic Director Joe Dean had multiyear contracts during his 14-year term.

``If they feel that I'm the guy for that, then I'm up for whatever helps LSU,'' Bertman told the New Orleans Times-Picayune.

Emmert said a formal announcement could come as early as Wednesday, and formal approval would likely happen at the next Board of Supervisors meeting on Jan. 19.

``I expect to recommend one person, and I do not anticipate any problem,'' Emmert said. ``I think we will be all in agreement.''

Bertman, 62, left an assistant coaching job at the University of Miami in 1983 to come to LSU.

In only his third year in 1986, LSU was in the College World Series.

Bertman won national titles in 1991, '93, '96, '97 and '00. LSU has led the nation in attendance five straight years, averaging more than 7,000 fans a game.

``Skip Bertman brings a tremendous combination of the things we are looking for in an athletic director,'' Emmert said. ``As I discussed earlier, the sitting athletic director with all the qualifications we were looking for probably doesn't exist. So we wind up with an excellent combination.

``Skip has decades of experience as a college coach, has proven to be an excellent fund raiser and knows how an athletic department works. He has great familiarity with the SEC, the other athletic directors in the SEC and the coaches here at LSU.''

Dean's contract expired June 30. He officially stepped down on Dec. 31 after a six-month extension.

Emmert named Baudin, LSU's vice chancellor of finance and administrative services, interim athletic director on Dec. 22 shortly after Oregon State Athletic Director Mitch Barnhart turned down the permanent job.

Another candidate for the job has been East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney Doug Moreau, an LSU football All-American in 1965 whose name has been connected with the position for several months. Moreau was the favored candidate of some board members who wanted someone with LSU ties.

``Skip brings to the table all the purple and gold you would ever want,'' Emmert said. ``He is extremely visible and well-liked in the community and the state.''

Questions still open include how long Baudin will remain as interim athletic director.

Bertman announced after last baseball season that this year would be his final season. Ray ``Smoke'' Laval, a former Bertman assistant, left the head coaching job at the University of Louisiana at Monroe in July to serve as administrative assistant under Bertman and take over after 2001.

In September, Bertman signed a two-year contract for $150,000 a year beginning July 1, 2001 to be an assistant athletic director. That contract is expected to be completely revamped. LSU was prepared to pay Barnhart about $350,000 or more a year.

In a Dec. 22 interview, Bertman told The Advocate that he didn't think he had enough experience to be athletic director.

A source close to Bertman told the newspaper that Bertman has long been interested in the athletic director job, but had two conditions. He did not want to take a job that Dean still wanted, and he wanted the chancellor and board to make the first offer.