Jeff Bourne, a man who doesn’t need a telescope to identify stars, watched history from his den. It was a quiet Monday night at his North Carolina home on the edge of Lake Norman, just the way he likes it now. As bedtime neared, his television screen showed a group of carefree players carrying a giant Gatorade cooler, coming for his old friend, Indiana football coach Curt Cignetti. After Cignetti pointed to the heavens, the icy blue liquid rained onto his back and shoulders. He mouthed, “That’s
After Cignetti pointed to the heavens, the icy blue liquid rained onto his back and shoulders. He mouthed, “That’s cold!” Then he unfurled the widest smile, in full defiance of his curmudgeon reputation, a joyous side that Bourne remembers fondly.
“What a cool thing to witness,” Bourne said during a phone interview.
Seven years ago, Bourne hired Cignetti to lead the James Madison football program. Now, the retired athletic director gazed upon Cignetti wearing a crimson Hoosiers pullover and completing a miraculous two-year turnaround at Indiana with a 16-0 record and a national title. The author of perhaps the greatest coaching job in major college football history passed through Harrisonburg, Va., on his way to bliss to Bloomington. If Bourne had done nothing else in his 25 years as the James Madison AD, the Cignetti hire would be a legacy-defining decision. But Cignetti was just the ice in his Gatorade.
For Bourne, Cignetti’s success wasn’t an outlier. It was a pattern.
The man left the job 20 months ago, but he’s still on a hiring heater. Mark Byington, the men’s basketball coach of No. 15 Vanderbilt (16-3)? Bourne brought him to James Madison in 2020. Kenny Brooks, the women’s basketball coach of No. 11 Kentucky (17-4)? Bourne recognized the former James Madison player’s head-coaching potential more than two decades ago.
He made many other good hires while leading the Dukes, but the high-profile success of those three coaches makes Bourne one of the most astonishing, albeit anonymous, talent evaluators in the profession. The sports world is full of solid leaders who can’t consistently find the right coach. Bourne developed an enviable feel for the task.
His secret was simple: He never made it about himself. He leaned on the university’s culture and sense of community. Above all, he prioritized fit.
It’s rather easy to identify a coach with stellar leadership qualities and a deep understanding of his sport. It’s much more challenging to discern whether that person is a match for your institution. His track record suggests he can see the future. But in reality, Bourne wasn’t looking for a coaching star. He was looking for a resident. He wanted someone who would invest emotionally in Harrisonburg, a Shenandoah Valley town rich in community and pride. He wanted a strategist who could appreciate James Madison’s resources. It’s a critical first step to maximizing them.
“We wanted each coach to thoroughly understand our culture and what was available to them,” Bourne said. “We looked for integrity. We looked for people who wanted to grow and teach. You could feel whether that fit was right or not.”
When James Madison poached Cignetti from former Colonial Athletic Association rival Elon after the 2018 season, Bourne focused much of his research on the football background of the Cignetti family and the coach’s time at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. He saw what the football world now celebrates: a serious football mind with a special knack for scouting and developing undervalued players. From that first head-coaching job at IUP, the Division II program that his father, Frank Sr., once led, Cignetti proved he was up to all tasks. He had gone from coaching wide receivers at mighty Alabama to “waxing the staff table at IUP on Thanksgiving weekend,” and he loved it.
“It painted a picture for us of what he was capable of,” Bourne said.
In five seasons at James Madison, Cignetti went 52-9 and guided the Dukes through a successful transition to college football’s top division and left the program in such good shape that Bob Chesney took over and ended up leading James Madison to a College Football Playoff berth this season. Chesney, another Bourne hire, left at season’s end for UCLA.
Two shared connections allowed Bourne to recognize Byington as a rising star. Both are from Salem, Va, and both once worked with Bobby Cremins. Byington was the top assistant under Cremins at the College of Charleston, and Bourne was an assistant AD at Georgia Tech for part of the coach’s run in Atlanta. Byington went 82-36 at James Madison, including a 32-4 campaign in 2023-24 in which the Dukes upset Wisconsin and advanced to the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
“Mark had never made the tournament before, but when you’re winning 20 games almost every year at Georgia Southern, you’re doing something right,” Bourne said. “To get him, we had to spend money. Frankly, it was a reach at JMU to afford what it took, but I commend the university for stepping up the resources.”
After Brooks spent a season as the interim women’s basketball coach, Bourne made him the program’s permanent leader in 2003. Brooks, who played for Lefty Driesell, was a homegrown talent who won 337 games and made six NCAA Tournament appearances in 14 seasons at his alma mater. In 2016, he left for Virginia Tech, built the Hokies into a perennial top-25 team, and made the Final Four in 2023. Now in his second season at Kentucky, Brooks has quickly restored a program that posted a 24-39 record in the two years before his arrival.
When Bourne speaks of “Kenny,” the coach sounds like family. Brooks is as James Madison as it gets. He stayed. He thrived. And he brings all that he learned from home to every stop.
At James Madison, hiring great coaches has often meant saying goodbye when bigger opportunities arrive. It speaks to the magic of the place that most stay longer than the average coach on the rise. The football program is becoming a national brand. The entire athletic department is in a healthy place. When Bourne retired, he handed current AD Matt Roan a great situation. The university is a wonderful mix of lifers who maintain the culture and shooting stars who respect it.
“It’s a testament to the institution and the community,” Bourne said. “There’s a reason they wanted to come in the first place, and there’s a reason they stayed.”
Bourne stayed for a quarter century. He remembers talking to his wife, Mary Lou, when the job came open in 1999. They came to the same conclusion: “Throw your name in the hat, but you’re probably not going to get it.”
But the kid from a cattle farm in Salem did get it. Mary Lou, who grew up in Harrisonburg, was headed home. They built a beautiful life together. But when it was time to retire, Bourne didn’t hesitate.
“It wasn’t hard,” he said. “I had been in the business for 40 years. I’ve watched people leave too late. I’ve never watched people leave too early.”
In retirement, Bourne’s work continues, more quietly than ever, in the careers of so many leaders whom he empowered. Cignetti. Byington. Brooks. Each prominent figure reflects the same belief: Winning starts with belonging.
Schools would pay handsomely to find an athletic director capable of identifying transformative coaches in football, men’s basketball and women’s hoops. Bourne did it, with his own invisible flair, for 25 years.
Now, from his home near Lake Norman, he watches without regret or interruption. He cheers for those who stayed and for those he helped grow to be so coveted by opportunity. On Monday night, the Gatorade shower wasn’t for him or James Madison. But Bourne smiles with Cignetti anyway, knowing exactly how it happened, and why.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
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