In February, Rutgers athletics director Julie Hermann told a class of Rutgers journalism students "it would be great" if the Newark Star-Ledger went under. The paper recently had to lay off 167 (mostly underpaid) employees. When the comments came to light last week, Hermann was rightly taken to task by both the New Jersey and national media.
Today, Rutgers announced the hiring of a new senior director of digital media... and it's Tom Luicci, a longtime Rutgers beat writer from the Newark Star-Ledger.
Luicci started writing in 1974, and worked for the Star-Ledger from 1979 until leaving the paper one week ago.
Seemingly every major college athletics program these days has a senior director of digital media. It's become a necessary position to employ as more and more Americans spend life with their mobile device glued to their eyeballs. But most, if not all, of them are nothing like Liucci.
For starters, most have only seen a typewriter in museums. Liucci owns one.
The typical digital media director is skilled in storytelling through video, photos, graphics and other creative web functions, and toggles between social media platforms with ease. Luicci's battle with today's technology has been a running joke on his Twitter feed for years.
This isn't meant to be a slight on Luicci. He's a talented and incredibly accomplished writer, much more so than I'll ever be, but he seems to be a curious match to lead the online efforts for a Power Five athletics program headstrong in an ongoing attempt to capture the nation's largest media market.
It's just the latest head-scratching move for an athletics director that's made a habit of them.