Pat Kelsey recalls process of leaving Charleston for Louisville job

Pat Kelsey became the 24th head coach in the history of Louisville Basketball at the end of March. That came soon after his third season at Charleston ended from how he remembers the hiring process with the Cardinals.

Kelsey recalled his discussions with Louisville about their open job during an interview on ‘College Hoops Today’ with Jon Rothstein. A little after his Cougars exited the opening round of the NCAA Tournament, he said these conversations began.

“Man, it seems it’s just been a nonstop, non-sleep time from the time that buzzer sounded. Listen, in this new world of college basketball, no matter what, whether there’s a transition where you change jobs, you go from Charleston to Louisville, or you stay the head coach where you’re at? It’s a new dynamic where, when the season ended, there was a little bit of a lull. Kind of before the transfer portal and things like that where, for the most part, most schools had the entirety of their roster already buttoned up,” Kelsey said. “There was a time where coaches can kind of step away a little bit. Take a deep breath, get other things in order, and then dive back into it. It really has changed to the point now where, when the buzzer sounds, you really go into hyper speed.”

It was at that point that Louisville’s coaching search reached him. He made it clear that he wasn’t the only option, though, as he noted how his new athletic director went in-depth and in detail with several candidates, including himself.

“Yeah, you know, I had been through job searches before and the interview process throughout the course of my 22 years at the Division I level,” Kelsey said. “I give Josh Heird, our athletic director, a ton of credit just as to how meticulous he was throughout the process with all the candidates that I know that he was interested in having conversations with.”

“Josh wasn’t caught up in, kind of, how most searches are supposed to be done now. He literally looked into this. As he said publicly, he had nobody specifically in mind that he was going after from the start. He wanted to have to start from base zero and have conversations with a group of people that he had an interest in and kind of see how it would go. He had a certain set of standards, I guess, in place as to what he wanted,” said Kelsey. “Josh was extremely thorough. I had multiple conversations with him.”

That process eventually ended in the choice of Kelsey. That will make it his third head-coaching gig after nine seasons at Winthrop and the past three at Charleston. In those pair of stops with the Eagles and Cougars, he has posted a record of 261-122 (.681). That includes 11 different conference titles and four berths in March Madness.

Now, with him in place, the Cards have a coach that’s very excited to be where he is. Kelsey believes that Louisville is where he should be in what is a major promotion for his coaching career.

“Just the way it worked out, I’m a big believer that God has a plan and I’m supposed to be sitting here with my feet on the ground in the 502, hopefully building a championship roster at one of the most tradition-rich programs in the country right now,” Kelsey said. “I’m very, very blessed to have done it.”