EAST LANSING – While Pat Fitzgerald patrolled the football practice field Monday, Aug. 18, Michigan State had found his new boss. A little less than an hour later, after the first-year coach spoke to reporters, it became official.
Make no mistake: Dan Bartholomae’s primary mission is to help get Fitzgerald’s program back to competing for championships. And vice versa for the coach the Spartans’ new athletic director inherits in the football-dominated new landscape of the Big Ten and college sports.
The first step in creating a relationship? From Fitzgerald’s standpoint, “honesty, transparency” are essential.
“The ability to sit down and have hard conversations and create a plan,” Fitzgerald said Monday before Bartholomae’s hiring became official.
“What does that mean? That means the next 12 months, the next 36 months, the next five years – what is our plan, where do we see our priorities? It’s my job to help that person be better, in whatever that means. However they need me is what I’m gonna do.
“It’s just like my assistant coaches to me. We have very honest, transparent conversations. And they’re there to help me be the best head coach I can be. I’m here to take things off the AD’s plate and make him be – or she be – the best AD possible.”
MSU’s hiring of Bartholomae away from Western Michigan comes two months and two days after his predecessor, J Batt, announced he would leave the Spartans for Kentucky. Batt spent one year on the job that included firing previous coach Jonathan Smith after two seasons and hiring Fitzgerald in December. Jon Palumbo, the CEO of MSU’s new Spartan Ventures fundraising organization, has been serving as interim AD since July 10.
More importantly for Fitzgerald, Bartholomae's hiring comes 2½ weeks before his debut as MSU’s football coach on Sept. 4 against Toledo. When it looked like it might be a long time in limbo.
Batt’s final official day at MSU was July 27, though he had transitioned away from his duties before that. Two days later in Chicago, speaking during Big Ten media day, Fitzgerald was cautious about what the future might hold when it appeared MSU might be undertaking a prolonged search for Batt’s replacement.
“Where it needs to go, those are conversations for when we get our next AD on board. And I’ve got to live it for a year, honestly,” Fitzgerald said July 29. “There’s been facility master plans done, there’s been resource allocation plans that were done. And J and I and Jon were getting on the same page on those. So there’s a little pause there, and then those will pick back up.”
Fitzgerald on Monday said he “was disappointed to see (Batt) leave.”
“Because obviously I was excited to work with him. He was the catalyst and reason why I was here,” he said. “When those things happen, you talk to the people around the program and around the school.”
There also was a two-month window in which it appeared the president who hired Fitzgerald, Kevin Guskiewicz, also would be leaving. Instead, Guskiewicz changed course in early July to stay at MSU after accepting the same position at Clemson.
With Guszkiewicz remaining and Bartholomae now arriving, Fitzgerald on Monday shifted his belief that it might take a year to get things recalibrated.
“Oh yeah, it definitely can be accelerated,” he said. “I get a little busy with this thing called the season here coming up pretty soon, so a lot will be on their plate, I’m sure, whoever it’ll be. J and I and Jon were meeting once a week. That was something that I’ve always done, and I requested actually when I was at Northwestern with (now-ACC commissioner) Jim Phillips. I wanted to have at least one meeting a week in-season, and if not more, depending on their schedule. Usually, they’re pretty busy, but I wanted to make sure they knew where we were at, where we were going and how we were gonna do it.
“I just believe in – like I’ve said now three times – just being honest and being transparent, and I think that builds trust. And then you can just have alignment between myself, that position, the president’s office and then our key donors and trustees.”
That relationship with donors will be a major mission for Bartholomae, who arrives from WMU and the Mid-American Conference that does not play in the same financial ecosphere as MSU and the Big Ten.
According to 247Sports.com, MSU is one of eight Big Ten schools spending more than $20 million on its football roster this season. Five others are paying more than $30 million, while Ohio State and Oregon each are reportedly spending more than $40 million for players – which is about as much as Bartholomae had to work with for his entire WMU athletic department.
But football season is a significant time for athletic directors to connect with donors, which is pivotal to getting new leadership in place for MSU. Bartholomae also has a proven track record in the region of raising funds, with average annual giving at WMU increasing by 473% and the number of unique donors jumping by 105% during his 4½ years as the Broncos’ athletic director.
That boost helped WMU to go 10-4 and win the MAC football title last year under third-year coach Lance Taylor, which came after the Broncos’ hockey team won the school’s first national championship earlier that spring. Bartholomae also helped WMU get funding for its new $515 million basketball and hockey arena that is scheduled to open in 2027 – important to note, as Spartan Stadium has been approved for $500 million renovations by MSU's Board of Trustees.
Even before the Bartholomae hire was made official, Fitzgerald said he “couldn’t be more excited about the direction of the athletic department and the university.”
“When President Guskiewicz made the decision to come back, it was just a huge, ‘Let’s go,’” Fitzgerald said. “I trust and believe in that leadership.”
Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him @chrissolari.
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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Funding Michigan State football top mission for new AD Dan Bartholomae
