Liberty might be at sports crossroads
Six years ago, I sat across the table from Jerry Falwell Jr. in his Liberty University office and listened to his blueprint for how big-time football would raise the profile of a campus that was flush with cash and bursting with ambition.
The insurmountable obstacle to that pursuit, however, was Liberty’s reputation – not so much as an academic institution but as an extension of the Falwell brand going back to controversial televangelist Jerry Falwell Sr. and continuing through a son who employed political tools more than religious ones to gain mainstream influence.
Despite massive investments in sports and a clear desire to join a conference in the Football Bowl Subdivision, nobody wanted to be in business with Liberty.
“One of the (Sun Belt) presidents made the comment, he said, ‘Yeah Jerry, all you have to do is show people Liberty’s not Oral Roberts, it’s Baylor,’ ” Falwell told me that day.
It never happened.
But Falwell’s departure from Liberty this week under the cloud of personal scandal brings up an interesting scenario in the world of college athletics, where Falwell so desperately wanted to be a major player. Does a new president, and a potentially new image for one of the most prominent evangelical Christian universities in the world, finally pave the way for Liberty to break through? Or will the brand remain too toxic for years to come?
“If the next president is more ‘mainstream,’ it is hard to overstate how much that will potentially help them join an FBS conference,” said one college athletic insider, who spoke to USA TODAY Sports on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the subject. “Dislike of Falwell and Falwell Sr. was a tremendous impediment.”
Liberty’s viability and acceptability as a potential FBS conference member has been a fairly regular topic in recent years, particularly in the Sun Belt and Conference USA where there would be a natural geographic fit.
Falwell regularly claimed that the resistance to Liberty was rooted in religious bias. Administrators in those leagues often cited Liberty’s massively profitable online learning operation and the perception that money was no object to Falwell as a poor academic and competitive fit in leagues where budgets are tight.
The truth, of course, was somewhere in the middle. But as then-candidate Donald Trump campaigned for the presidency in 2016 with Falwell serving as one of his most high-profile surrogates, it became significantly easier for university presidents to dismiss the “Baylor, not Oral Roberts” argument and collectively decide Liberty wasn’t worth the blowback or the financial incentives Falwell was offering.
One administrator in a league that Liberty had been in discussions with around that time told USA TODAY Sports on Wednesday that Liberty’s lucrative offer to join the conference was a non-starter with presidents because of Falwell’s political involvement.
Despite the rejection, Liberty pressed on with FBS membership as an independent and made a splashy coaching hire in Hugh Freeze, who had resigned under pressure at Mississippi in 2017 following his own personal scandal. Freeze’s redemption campaign included him appearing on stage with Falwell in early 2018 speaking about marital issues and forgiveness.
While many cynics immediately rolled their eyes at the partnership between Falwell and Freeze, the fact that Liberty was willing to pay a reported $2 million a year to a well-known, winning college coach underscored the school’s football ambitions.
Though Freeze’s first season became something of an internet meme when he coached from a hospital bed and a dentist’s chair due to back trouble and a dangerous staph infection, Falwell’s ploy worked: Liberty went 8-5 in his first season and won the Cure Bowl.
But now, the question of what comes next for Liberty as a university will determine whether Falwell’s grand vision for his athletic department eventually comes to fruition. Does the school double down on the brand of political evangelism that brought scrutiny on the school’s diversity and allegations of censorship at the student newspaper? Or does it tack in a different direction and become a school with more broadbased appeal?
“Let’s just say they hire someone who has been at a mainstream Christian university like Baylor or Pepperdine or Samford and is respected by their peers in academia, that will go a very long way,” the first insider said. “There are a lot of really serious people there, and it is a pretty awesome place. If they use this moment to reset and rebrand going forward, they could be a pretty significant force in the coming years in Group of Five college athletics.”
At the same time, though, it’s unclear whether the next president will be as focused on football or as willing to spend wildly on salaries and facilities as a show of potential, not financial prudence.
The notion of Liberty’s sports program having the same prominence with evangelicals that Notre Dame has with Catholics or BYU has with Mormons was a Falwell family production, verbalized early on by the father and more fervently pursued by the son. It’s hard to see anyone else putting millions of dollars on the table as an incentive to get Liberty in a league like the Sun Belt or C-USA.
No matter what you think of Falwell’s leadership or his politics, he undeniably built an infrastructure for athletics with modern facilities and bold coaching decisions that would fit well in any Group of Five league. He simply couldn’t overcome the biggest obstacle to realizing those goals: himself.
With Falwell now out of the equation, Liberty might have its best chance at relevance and acceptance in college sports. It will be up to the school’s new leadership to take it.