I think only Zipp holds the yut baseball career against him - honestly his THS career bugs me as much. I was 3-5 lifetime on him though, so there’s that.BP,
Finally, I can partially agree with one of your takes. VT is also unproven and probably overpaid. If I were picking our interim AD, it would have been someone with more relevant experience. Hell, I'd have gone with Denny Crum or Schnelly over VT. That said, I'm willing to sit back and see what he produces. At the very least, he seems to be a fan. I won't hold the UK baseball stint against him. U of L sucked at baseball when VT was playing.
Maybe the common theme in all of this, is that we are overpaying most employees. While we're at it, why give Padgett 1.1 million? Would he have turned down the job for 500k? Seems arbitrary to toss cash around when our liquidity is what it is these days.
So are you comfortable with him being the permanent AD?