Jan. 12, 2009

The Vice President of Athletics, Tom Jurich, was named the 2009 National Girls and Women in Sports Honoree for the University of Louisville last night at the women's basketball game against Rutgers in Freedom Hall.

On hand to award the honor, Julie Hermann, U of L's Senior Associate Athletic Director, said, "This year, in his eleventh year as AD, we would like to honor our first gentleman for National Girls and Women In Sports Day. When Tom Jurich hired me in 1998, he said we are going to grow women's sports like crazy, we're not going to just add, we're going to do it right and we're going to do it better than everyone else."

In Jurich's 11 years as U of L Athletic Director, Cardinal women's teams have won 21 conference championships, made 37 NCAA tournament appearances, including 5 sweet sixteens and had 30 women named ALL- American. Field Hockey, volleyball, rowing, basketball, soccer, softball, golf, track and field and swimming and diving have all broken into the Top 25 national rankings.

"He has grown the women's sports program to 12 sports with more than 300 women competing, adding four women's sports programs in less than a decade, faster than anyone else in the NCAA," said Hermann. "Tom has tripled the scholarship dollars spent on women, and tripled the number of women working in the department. He has built $50 million dollars worth of facilities for them to practice and play in and he has ensured that every single service we provide would be equal men to women."