When Michael Giorlando was named Loyola’s new athletic director and men’s basketball coach on July 7, he was presented with a Wolfpack baseball hat at the press conference.

“Perfect fit,” he said.

He wasn’t just talking about the cap. According to Giorlando, Loyola really is where he feels at home.

His journey to the job of Loyola’s athletic director began after leaving a Loyola classroom. A New Orleans native, Giorlando attended Spring Hill College in Mobile, Ala.

However, he returned home between semesters and took summer school courses at Loyola. When those classes finished at noon, Giorlando headed to Isidore Newman High School to assist basketball coach Billy Fitzgerald with his hoops camp.

It was during these camps that Giorlando said he first felt an inclination to become a basketball coach.

After graduating from Spring Hill with a Bachelor of Science in biology, he went to the LSU School of Dentistry, where he received a doctorate in dental surgery.

“Fitzgerald and I became good friends, and I started recruiting for him,” Giorlando said. “During dental school, I scouted games for him and was offered a part-time job as the sixth-grade coach at Newman.”

Giorlando pursued coaching while in dental school and for seven years while he ran a practice. He also taught for eight years at the LSU School of Dentistry, holding the title of associate clinical professor. His coaching career has spanned 15 years at the collegiate and high school levels.

Giorlando said he learned a lot about coaching while working for head coach Tim Floyd at UNO from 1991 to 1992 and at LSU on John Brady’s staff from 2001 to 2004.

“It was a great opportunity to coach with a guy like Tim Floyd,” Giorlando said. “He was a young, up-and-coming coach in the college ranks, and he gave me responsibility as a young coach in his program. I learned from the ground up.”

While on Floyd’s staff, Giorlando went back to graduate school at UNO to get a master’s degree in education. At LSU, he oversaw basketball camps, balanced the team’s budget and took care of travel arrangements.

After his one year with Floyd, Giorlando became the junior varsity and assistant varsity coach at St. Martin’s Episcopal, where former Loyola athletic director Jerry Hernandez was the head coach.

Giorlando said that he has great respect for Hernandez and is unaware of the reason for his sudden resignation as athletic director in mid-May.

“He just resigned, and nothing was said,” Giorlando said. “He was committed to this program from day one. I think he did unbelievable here. A lot of programs judge success on wins and losses, but for Loyola, that is not major criteria for judgment under his tenure.”

Giorlando’s first job as athletic director was to replace head baseball coach Gregg Mucerino, who resigned the same day as Hernandez. On July 16, Giorlando hired Michael Beeman, who had been the pitching coach at Georgetown University for the last two years.

“I’m excited and thankful I’m here to do this great challenge,” Giorlando said. “We’re a young department trying to make our campus proud. We’re getting better and stronger as a department. Our reputation will continue to be an

academic institution first that has an excellent athletic program for those that want to have collegiate careers.”

In his first year as men’s basketball coach, Giorlando inherited Loyola’s first scholarship class since 1972. When he accepted the job, one of the three men’s scholarships had not yet been awarded.

He said he was able to recruit Mario Faranda because other interested schools were unaware that Faranda had finished high school in three years.

As for the future of the team, Giorlando has set goals of competing for a conference championship and qualifying for the national tournament.

“We also want to be known as providing great entertainment for our students and faculty,” he said. “That will take recruiting a product that can be competitive every year and the student body supporting us with pride and spirit.”

Giorlando said that he hopes the scholarship program continues and eventually applies to every sport in the department.

“Apparently there’s a meeting for that to be discussed,” he said. “It would enhance the whole academic experience. But it’s going to take time.”

While Giorlando still has his license to practice dentistry, he no longer works at a medical office and said he could only serve as a consultant if a player were to sustain a mouth injury.

With his focus no longer on cavities and root canals, Giorlando can work toward coaching and guiding the Loyola athletic program to new heights as a national competitor.

Open wide, Loyola.