Jeff Brohm is home at Louisville, and he can’t afford to fail now
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David Hale, ESPN Staff Writer
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — It was the spring of 2022, and despite how his words sounded when replayed on the local news later, Jeff Brohm was just trying to be polite.
Brohm was back in his hometown of Louisville, Kentucky, speaking to 100 or so alums of Flaget High School — “Where Paul Hornung, Howard Schnellenberger and my dad went,” Brohm noted. He spent the better part of an hour talking football before he got the question — the one he always seemed to get.
“When are you coming back to coach at Louisville?”
Brohm was Kentucky’s “Mr. Football” in 1988, then became a star quarterback at Louisville. He worked as an assistant for the Cardinals under Bobby Petrino for six seasons, too, before moving on to head coaching jobs at Western Kentucky and Purdue. He was offered the head job at Louisville after Petrino was fired in 2019, but he demurred — “Bad timing,” he said — and for the next four years, Cardinals fans longed for a second chance to bring Brohm home.
And so the question came again — this time from a nice gentleman — and Brohm didn’t want to be rude.
“I love this town,” Brohm said. “I’m an alumnus of Louisville. So, anything can happen in the future.”
Now, he might’ve offered a few important caveats before answering — like the fact that Louisville already had a coach and that Brohm already had another job. But the event had been so lighthearted that, truly, Brohm didn’t give his reply much thought. Nor did he think about the reporter with the camera.
“I talked for an hour and 10 minutes and it was the only time I referenced Louisville,” Brohm recalled. “And that’s all I heard about after.”
Brohm insisted he wasn’t insulting Purdue, and he wasn’t angling for the Louisville job. It was a lot of hubbub over nothing. Really.
“And then sure enough,” Brohm said, “it actually happened a year later.”
Yes, Brohm is finally back in his hometown, coaching at his alma mater, much to the delight of the innumerable fans who’d pined for his homecoming for years. When Satterfield left for Cincinnati at the end of last season, Brohm was offered the job again, and this time, it all felt right.
Of course, those dream jobs always feel magical at first, yet it doesn’t always turn out to be such a happy reunion. For every Steve Spurrier or Kirby Smart, who went home and won a national title, there are others, like Scott Frost, who withered under the outsized expectations.
When it doesn’t work out, it’s not just a job that’s lost.
“When you’re coaching somewhere else, you put in the work, but if it doesn’t work out, hey, I can always go home,” Brohm said. “Well, this is home.”
It’s something Brohm said he thinks about nearly every day now. After years of anticipation, he finally has the job he always wanted. He can’t afford to fail.
BROHM ARRIVED TO immense fanfare in Louisville, but he also saw a ticking clock. Everyone loved him the day he was hired because he’d done so much for the city and the school over the years, but eventually, there would be real data points on his job performance, and he can’t afford a misstep.
“All the positivity now is because we haven’t lost a game yet,” Brohm said. “I’ve been around some good days here, and there’s been tremendous fan support at all levels when you’re doing great things. We want to get that going as fast as we can.”
It’s the same balance Mario Cristobal understood when he opted to leave a cozy gig at Oregon to return to Miami with a plan to resurrect his alma mater. The problem, as he saw it, was a massive schism between the size of the job and the optimism of Miami’s fans.
“The clear fact, the fact that’s as clear as the day is long, is Miami didn’t get to this spot overnight,” Cristobal said, “and Miami isn’t getting out of this spot overnight.”
That’s Cristobal’s tagline for the program in Year 2. But when he first arrived, the fan base was so overjoyed at the thought that their prodigal son, who’d won two national titles at Miami as a player, would restore the program’s past glory that there wasn’t much room for the cold, hard truth.
The Hurricanes finished 2022 with a 5-7 record with embarrassing losses to Middle Tennessee and rival Florida State. After the season, a sizable chunk of Cristobal’s first staff departed, as did a number of players. The excitement that followed his arrival in Coral Gables had quickly turned into skepticism.
Cristobal saw most of it coming, the inevitable struggles, and it nearly convinced him to stay at Oregon.
The hours, the pressure, the expectations, he thrives on that, he said, but he knew it would take its toll on his family. It was a big risk.
But it was home.
“I don’t want to go to the grave without Miami winning,” Cristobal said. “I don’t. I would’ve had a lot of regret. I know if I’d said no, the ship would’ve sailed, and the next time it came around, it might’ve been too late.”
It’s the double-edged sword of being a program’s favorite son. The often sizable challenges of the present are viewed through the glories of past success, and when reality sets in, things can get ugly.
Dave Wannstedt had won Super Bowls in the NFL, so he seemed like an ideal hire at Pitt, where he’d starred as a player. Six years later, he was fired after a 7-5 campaign.
Jim Harbaugh has taken Michigan to back-to-back College Football Playoffs, but that success came on the heels of a dismal 2020 campaign that forced him to take a pay cut. That Michigan didn’t fire him rankled a sizable contingent of Wolverines fans who’d once celebrated his return.
Frost was supposed to be the miracle that returned Nebraska to greatness. He’d coached UCF to an undefeated season in 2017, and he had his pick of plumb jobs in the aftermath. But he wanted to go home, to a place where he’d quarterbacked the Huskers to a 24-2 record in two seasons. His coaching tenure there ended after an embarrassing home loss to Georgia Southern that dropped his record at Nebraska to 16-31.
So yes, Brohm isn’t assuming he has an inch of runway at Louisville.
“When you take a little more pride in what you’re doing, it makes you work a little harder, take a little more time figuring it out so you don’t let people down,” Brohm said. “There are a lot of guys on our staff with local connections, and they want to win here, and they want to win now.”
JOSH HEIRD INSISTS he had more than one candidate for the job after Satterfield departed for Cincinnati. Yes, Brohm was at the top of the list — but not just because of his local ties. He was a heck of a coach, had just led Purdue to the Big Ten title game, had been to seven bowl games in nine years as a head coach.
Of course, Heird also admits it would’ve been a problem if he’d gone in another direction.
“If it wasn’t Jeff,” Heird said, “whoever it was would be compared to Jeff from Day 1.”
Heird actually joked at Brohm’s introductory news conference that “for the last 12 months, you’ve made my life miserable.” Yeah, there was a bit of pressure to get the prodigal son back onto campus.
Heck, Louisville defensive lineman Ashton Gillotte had started following a Twitter account with the handle, @BringBrohmHome. The account’s owner has a website, too, with flight tracker data and video of Brohm’s playing days. The account’s bio now notes the success of the initiative: “Destiny typed into existence.”
The Brohm effect has Louisville as excited for the 2023 season as fans have been for any year since Lamar Jackson was on campus, with season ticket sales already up more than 20%. Running back Jawhar Jordan said he gets approached at the grocery store now by fans wanting to talk about the team.
“There’s constant people,” Brohm said. “There’s more speaking functions and going out in the community and it’s all important to do that.”
That’s largely meant his wife and kids have enjoyed the perks of being back in Louisville. Brohm’s been on the clock since the moment he accepted the job.
“I tell them I’m glad they’re having fun,” Brohm said. “I’m working my ass off here.”
If it’s time-consuming, Brohm has at least been met with something akin to a red carpet at local high schools, booster club meetings and fan fests. These people know him, and that brings instant cache. That’s the real value of coming home. There’s no sales pitch needed to convince fans to get excited or donors to write a big check or the administration to buy-in on a plan to get better.
Spurrier remembers arriving at Florida in 1990 to a far less optimistic welcome. The Gators had finished 7-5 the year before — and had actually lost at least five games in four straight seasons before he took the job.
Spurrier’s arrival wasn’t accompanied by lofty expectations, so he invited them.
“Some people thought I was a little cocky or brash,” Spurrier said, “because I told them we could win the SEC.”
In his first season, the Gators went 9-2. In his second season, they played in the Sugar Bowl. And for the next 10 years after that, Florida won at least nine games and finished ranked in the top 12 every season.
“There was the pressure I put on myself and the team,” Spurrier said. “We could be Alabama and Georgia and Tennessee and all those guys, but we had to believe. When you believe you can do it, your chances get a lot better.”
Brohm wants fans and his players to believe, too, so he’s not hiding from expectations. He’s embracing them. He’s seen what the town is like when Louisville’s good, when the whole program is humming and the city is along for the ride. To make that happen again in his hometown — what could be better?
So yes, there’s pressure. No one’s set higher expectations than he has.
He grew up here. His family, his wife’s family — they’re from here, too. His kids love Louisville. There’s nowhere else Brohm would rather be. He can’t mess that up.
“The last thing I want to do is be a failure and lose and lose the name I built there because we didn’t win,” Brohm said. “It motivates me to work harder, so that if for some reason it doesn’t work, I can look in the mirror and say, ‘OK, there’s nothing I could have done more to get this done.'”
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Bradford Doolittle
The initial 2025 MLB All-Star Game rosters are out, the product of the collaborative process between fans, players and the league. How did this annual confab do?
We already know that injuries will prevent some of these selectees from appearing in Atlanta, and replacement choices will be announced in the coming days. By the end of this post-selection period, we’ll wind up with something like 70 to 75 All-Stars for this season.
These first-draft rosters contain 65 players, the odd number stemming from the decision to send Clayton Kershaw to the festivities as a “Legend” pick. First reaction: Baseball’s newest member of the 3,000 strikeout club has earned everything he gets.
Now, on to the nitpicking.
American League
Biggest oversight: Joe Ryan, Minnesota Twins
The Twins’ lone representative on the initial rosters is outfielder Byron Buxton, a worthy selection. Ryan (8-4, 2.76 ERA) fell into a group of similar performers including Kansas City’s Kris Bubic and the Texas duo of Jacob deGrom and Nathan Eovaldi. Bubic and deGrom made it, which is great, and Bubic in particular is quite a story.
But Ryan and Eovaldi didn’t make it, and both were probably a little more deserving that Seattle’s Bryan Woo, whose superficial numbers (8-4, 2.77) are very close to Ryan’s. But Woo plays in a more friendly pitching park, and the under-the-hood metrics favor Ryan.
The main takeaway: If this is the biggest discrepancy, the process worked well.
Second-biggest oversight: Many-way tie between several hitters
The every-team-gets-a-player rule, along with positional requirements, always knocks out worthy performers from teams with multiple candidates. Thus, a few picks on the position side might have gone differently.
The Rays are playing so well they probably deserve more than one player. Their most deserving pick made it — infielder Jonathan Aranda — along with veteran second baseman Brandon Lowe. Infielders such as J.P. Crawford (Seattle), Isaac Paredes (Houston) and Zach McKinstry (Detroit) had good cases to make it ahead of Lowe, whose power numbers (19 homers, 54 RBIs) swayed the players.
While acknowledging that Gunnar Henderson has had a disappointing season, I still think he deserved to be the Orioles’ default pick instead of Ryan O’Hearn. But the latter was selected as the AL’s starting DH by the fans, and Baltimore doesn’t deserve two players. It’s a great story that O’Hearn will be a first-time All-Star just a couple of weeks before his 32nd birthday.
Other thoughts
• The default White Sox selection is rookie starter Shane Smith, a Rule 5 pick from Milwaukee last winter. Smith is my lowest-rated player on the AL squad, but he has been consistently solid. Adrian Houser, an in-season pickup, has been great for Chicago and has arguably produced more value than Smith. But I like honoring the rookie who has been there the whole campaign.
• The Athletics’ Jacob Wilson was elected as a starter and is easily the most deserving player from that squad. I’m not sure I see a second pick there, but Brent Rooker made it as a DH. Rooker has been fine, but his spot could have gone to one of the overlooked hitters already mentioned, or perhaps Kansas City’s Maikel Garcia.
• Houston’s Jeremy Pena is a deserving choice and arguably should be the AL’s starter at shortstop instead of Wilson. Alas, he’s on the injured list, and though reports say he might soon resume baseball activities, it’s likely Pena will be replaced. Any of the above-mentioned overlooked hitters will do.
• As for the starters, the fans do a great job nowadays. I disagreed with them on a couple of spots, though. I would have gone with a keystone combo of Jazz Chisholm Jr. and Pena rather than Gleyber Torres and Wilson, but I’d have them all on the team. And I would have definitely started Buxton over Javier Baez in the outfield.
National League
Biggest oversight: Juan Soto, New York Mets
Not sure how this happens, but I’m guessing Soto is a victim of his own standards. Yes, he signed a contract for an unfathomable amount of money, and so far, he hasn’t reinvented the game as a member of the Mets. He has just been lower-end Juan Soto, which is still one of the best players in the sport. His OBP is, as ever, north of .400, he leads the league in walks and it sure seems as if Pete Alonso has very much enjoyed hitting behind him.
The All-Star Game was invented for players like Soto, and though you might leave out someone like him if he is having a truly poor season, that’s not the case here. It is kind of amazing that he didn’t make it, while MacKenzie Gore and James Wood — both part of the trade that sent Soto from Washington to San Diego — did. They deserve it, and you can make a strong argument that a third player the Nats picked up in the trade — CJ Abrams — does as well. But Soto deserves it too.
Finally, the Marlins’ most-deserving pick is outfielder Kyle Stowers, who indeed ended up as their default selection. But he probably ended up with Soto’s slot.
Second-biggest oversight: Andy Pages, Los Angeles Dodgers
It’s hard to overlook anyone on the Dodgers, but somehow Pages slipped through the cracks despite his fantastic all-around first half for the defending champs.
It was just a numbers game. I’ve got five NL outfielders rated ahead of Pages, and all but Soto made it, so no additional quibbles there. The fans voted in Ronald Acuna Jr. to start at his home ballpark. Having Acuna there in front of the fans in Atlanta makes sense. But he has played only half of the first half.
Other thoughts
• The shortstop position is loaded in the NL, but the only pure shortstops to make it were starter Francisco Lindor and Elly De La Cruz. Both are good selections, but the Phillies’ Trea Turner has been just as outstanding. Abrams and Arizona’s Geraldo Perdomo are also deserving. The position has been so good that the player with the most career value currently playing shortstop in the NL — Mookie Betts — barely merits a mention. Betts has had a subpar half, but who will be surprised if he’s topping this list by the end of the season?
• Both leagues had three pitching staff slots given to relievers. The group in the AL (Aroldis Chapman, Josh Hader and Andres Munoz) was much more clear-cut than the one in the NL, which ended up with the Giants’ Randy Rodriguez, the Mets’ Edwin Diaz and the Padres’ Jason Adam. It made sense to honor someone from San Diego’s dominant bullpen, and you could have flipped a coin to pick between Adam and Adrian Morejon.
• Picking these rosters while meeting all the requirements and needs for teams and positions is hard. I don’t have any real issue with the pitchers selected for the NL. One of them is Atlanta’s Chris Sale, who is on the IL and will have to be replaced. My pick would be Philadelphia’s Cristopher Sanchez (7-2, 2.68 ERA).
• And for the starting position players, Alonso should have gotten the nod over Freddie Freeman at first base, though it will be great to see Freeman’s reception when he takes the field in Atlanta. For that matter, the Cubs’ Michael Busch has had a better first half than Freeman at this point, though that became true only in the past few days, thanks to his explosion at Wrigley Field. I would have gone with Turner at short, but it’s close. And I’d have started Wood in place of Acuna.
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Jesse Rogers
The last-place Washington Nationals fired president of baseball operations Mike Rizzo and manager Davey Martinez, the team announced Sunday.
Rizzo, 64, and Martinez, 60, won a World Series with the Nationals in 2019, but the team has floundered in recent years. This season, the Nationals are 37-53 and stuck at the bottom of the National League East after getting swept by the Boston Red Sox this weekend at home. Washington hasn’t finished higher than fourth in the division since winning the World Series.
“On behalf of our family and the Washington Nationals organization, I first and foremost want to thank Mike and Davey for their contributions to our franchise and our city,” principal owner Mark Lerner said in a statement. “Our family is eternally grateful for their years of dedication to the organization, including their roles in bringing a World Series trophy to Washington, D.C.
“While we are appreciative of their past successes, the on-field performance has not been where we or our fans expect it to be. This is a pivotal time for our club, and we believe a fresh approach and new energy is the best course of action for our team moving forward.”
Mike DeBartolo, the club’s senior vice president and assistant general manager, was named interim GM on Sunday night. DeBartolo will oversee all aspects of baseball operations, including the MLB draft. An announcement will be made on the interim manager Monday, a day before the club begins a series against the St. Louis Cardinals.
Rizzo has been the top decision-maker in Washington since 2013, and Martinez has been on board since 2018. Under Rizzo’s leadership, the team made the postseason four times: in 2014, 2016, 2017 and 2019. The latter season was Martinez’s lone playoff appearance.
“When our family assumed control of the team, nearly 20 years ago, Mike was the first hire we made,” Lerner said. “Over two decades, he was with us as we went from a fledging team in a new city to World Series champion. Mike helped make us who we are as an organization, and we’re so thankful to him for his hard work and dedication — not just on the field and in the front office, but in the community as well.”
The Nationals are in the midst of a rebuild that has moved slower than expected, though the team didn’t augment its young core much during the winter. Led by All-Stars James Wood and MacKenzie Gore, Washington has the second-youngest group of hitters in MLB and the sixth-youngest pitching staff.
The team lost 11 straight games in a forgettable stretch last month. And during a 2-10 run in June, Washington averaged just 2.5 runs. Since June 1, the Nationals have scored one run or been shut out seven times. In Sunday’s 6-4 loss to Boston, they left 15 runners on base.
There was industry speculation over the winter that the Nationals would spend money on free agents for the first time in several years, but that never materialized. Instead, the team made minor moves, signing free agents Josh Bell and Michael Soroka, trading for first baseman Nathaniel Lowe and re-signing closer Kyle Finnegan. Now, the hope is a new management team, both on and off the field, can help change the franchise’s fortunes.
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David Schoenfield
The rosters for the 2025 MLB All-Star Game will feature 19 first-timers — and one legend — as the pitchers and reserves were announced Sunday for the July 15 contest at Truist Park in Atlanta.
Los Angeles Dodgers left-hander Clayton Kershaw, a three-time Cy Young Award winner who made his first All-Star team in 2011, was named to his 11th National League roster as a special commissioner’s selection.
Kershaw, who became only the fourth left-hander to amass 3,000 career strikeouts, is 4-0 with a 3.43 ERA in nine starts after beginning the season on the injured list. He joins Albert Pujols and Miguel Cabrera as a legend choice, after the pair of sluggers were selected in 2022.
Kershaw said he didn’t want to discuss the selection Sunday.
Among the first-time All-Stars announced Sunday: Dodgers teammate Yoshinobu Yamamoto; Washington Nationals outfielder James Wood and left-hander MacKenzie Gore; Houston Astros ace Hunter Brown and shortstop Jeremy Pena; and Chicago Cubs 34-year-old left-hander Matthew Boyd.
“It’ll just be cool being around some of the best players in the game,” Wood said.
First-time All-Stars previously elected to start by the fans include Seattle Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh, Athletics shortstop Jacob Wilson, Baltimore Orioles designated hitter Ryan O’Hearn and Cubs center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong.
Overall, the 19 first-time All-Stars is a drop from the 32 first-time selections on the initial rosters in 2024.
Kershaw would be the sentimental choice to start for the National League, although Pittsburgh Pirates ace Paul Skenes, who leads NL pitchers in ERA and WAR, might be in line to start his second straight contest. Philadelphia Phillies right-hander Zack Wheeler, a three-time All-Star, is 9-3 with a 2.17 ERA after Sunday’s complete-game victory and also would be a strong candidate to start.
“I think it would be stupid to say no to that. It’s a pretty cool opportunity,” Skenes said about the possibility of being asked to start by Dodgers manager Dave Roberts. “I didn’t make plans over the All-Star break or anything. So, yeah, I’m super stoked.”
Kershaw has made one All-Star start in his career, in 2022 at Dodger Stadium.
Among standout players not selected were New York Mets outfielder Juan Soto, who signed a $765 million contract as a free agent in the offseason, and Dodgers shortstop Mookie Betts, who had made eight consecutive All-Star rosters since 2016.
Soto got off to a slow start but was the National League Player of the Month in June and entered Sunday ranked sixth in the NL in WAR among position players while ranking second in OBP, eighth in OPS and third in runs scored.
The players vote for the reserves at each position and selected Wood, Corbin Carroll of the Arizona Diamondbacks and Fernando Tatis Jr. of the San Diego Padres as the backup outfielders. Kyle Stowers also made it as a backup outfielder as the representative for the Miami Marlins.
Unless Soto later is added as an injury replacement, he’ll miss his first All-Star Game since his first full season in 2019.
The Dodgers lead all teams with five representatives: Kershaw, Yamamoto and starters Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman and Will Smith. The AL-leading Detroit Tigers (57-34) and Mariners have four each.
Tigers ace Tarik Skubal will join AL starters Riley Greene, Gleyber Torres and Javier Baez, while Raleigh, the AL’s starting catcher, will be joined by Seattle teammates Bryan Woo, Andres Munoz and Julio Rodriguez.
Earning his fifth career selection but first since 2021 is Texas Rangers righty Jacob deGrom, who is finally healthy after making only nine starts in his first two seasons with the Rangers and is 9-2 with a 2.13 ERA. He has never started an All-Star Game, although Skubal or Brown would be the favorite to start for the AL.
The hometown Braves will have three All-Stars in Acuna, pitcher Chris Sale (his ninth selection, tied with Freeman for the second most behind Kershaw) and first baseman Matt Olson. The San Francisco Giants had three pitchers selected: Logan Webb, Robbie Ray and reliever Randy Rodriguez.
The slumping New York Yankees ended up with three All-Stars: Aaron Judge, Jazz Chisholm Jr. and Max Fried. The Mets also earned three All-Star selections: Francisco Lindor, Pete Alonso and Edwin Diaz.
“Red carpet, that’s my thing,” Chisholm said. “I do have a ‘fit in mind.”
Rosters are expanded from 26 to 32 for the All-Star Game. They include starters elected by fans, 17 players (five starting pitchers, three relievers and a backup for each position) chosen in a player vote and six players (four pitchers and two position players) selected by league officials. Every club must be represented.
Acuna, Wood and Raleigh are the three All-Stars who have so far committed to participating in the Home Run Derby.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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