It’s one thing to speculate on potential head coaching hires. You can look at wins/losses, rankings, statistics and make reasonable guests as to who Syracuse should be interested in, but when it comes to athletic directors, all that is lost. I’m going to do a couple of pieces about the open AD job this week, and first it’s about the reported “candidates”.
Since John Wildhack officially announced his retirement, which by the way had been rumored for months, people have thrown out a bunch of names and
with men’s basketball spiraling again, some fans are in a panic about the transition. I get the concern that Wildhack’s July 1st retirement means he’ll decide Adrian Autry’s future and pick a successor. I’m here to tell you that he might be the public face for the decisions, but they aren’t going to be solely his to make.
Internally we discussed making an AD candidate list and I declined because it’s mostly pointless. I get why others have done so, but the most reasonable thing is to look at people with ties to Syracuse in the industry. That’s a fine place to start, but then ask yourself, do you want someone who was at Syracuse when the Orange fell behind in NIL and other areas of revenue generation? Do you want someone because their agent is telling sources that they would have interest, or do you let alumni convince you that they know someone outside of Athletics who would be a great candidate?
In the not too distant past, athletic directors were mostly former coaches who slid into the administrative role. In the modern landscape, that’s not the case and you have more P4 athletic directors like Wildhack, who come from other areas of the sports industry. With Syracuse closing in on a new Chancellor, no one knows who the Orange will be looking for to take over the AD role. So to generate content, you find people who have Syracuse ties, have agents pushing their name out there, or are willing to convince you why they should be hired – as I suspect someone close to Andrew Goodrich is doing there.
Over the weekend, Army AD and former Orange lacrosee player Tom Theodorakis signed an extension and some folks lamented his removal from the candidate pool.
Theodorakis has only been an AD for a year and he’s got a strong reputation as a fund-raiser, so perhaps he would have been a great choice, but again Syracuse seems to want to limit searches to Syracuse people. No one can really claim to know which administrator at a P4 school might be able to take Syracuse’s NIL and revenue generation to the levels needed. No one knows who might be in another area of sports business who could fill the needs of the position. Why do we pine for people who haven’t proven they can do it- at Syracuse or another school? Do you really want someone who has been part of the last few years in Syracuse to assume this role- my guess is probably not.
Sidenote: What’s weird about the lists I’ve seen is that no one has mentioned another former Orange, Joe Fields, who is the AD at New Mexico State. I’m not suggesting he’s a top candidate, but Fields has as strong of a resume as some others being mentioned having spent time at Texas A&M and Tulsa before landing the NM State position. If we’re going to list only Syracuse people, he should be on the list as well.
Before the news of the Chancellor’s departure, there was an assumption that Heather Lyke was spending the year preparing to take over. With new University leadership, and the news of a Title IX lawsuit at Pitt, that plan doesn’t seem to be as solid. Lyke, like Wildhack, had mixed reviews of her AD tenure at Pitt. Positives like the growth of facilities and Olympic sport success was met with concerns about NIL and the contracts given to Jeff Capel. It’s hard to see Syracuse trying to fix men’s basketball with an AD who has those marks on their resume.
For all the talk of committees and transition, no one knows exactly where the Chancellor search stands, but the last update in December talked about a smaller pool entering the next phase. It seems possible that the next update will announce the final decision and we might have a quick turnaround to the completion of the athletic director search. Until then, let’s not panic if someone else from the “candidate” list is off the market.
Tomorrow I’m going to look at some sitting P4 athletic directors and what we “success” looks like.
