Michigan State has lost its president and athletic director weeks apart and now faces a leadership crisis.
President Kevin M. Guskiewicz announced he'd be leaving for Clemson at the end of May, and athletic director J Batt was hired away by Kentucky on Monday.
Michigan State basketball coach Tom Izzo, who has worked under many athletic directors and school presidents since he took over the program in 1995, lamented that Guskiewicz and Batt decided to leave.
“I am very upset about it, and I’m sick of it,” Izzo told reporters. “I think 600,000 living alums better start rallying together.”
At least one of those alums is on the same page.
Mark Hollis, the school's former athletic director who brought the Spartans to new heights before a fall from public esteem during the Larry Nassar case, told The Associated Press he would want to return to his alma mater.
“I would be interested in talking to Michigan State about it,” Hollis said at Detroit Golf Club, where he was serving in his role as tournament director of the PGA Tour’s Rocket Classic. “I care for the university and I want to help it in any way I can.”
The university's governing body has been criticized for its decisions, especially as of late. Guskiewicz cited “differing perspectives within the Board of Trustees" in a statement about his departure.
The board created an “unsustainable situation” for him to stay, he added.
Batt, hired by Guskiewicz, is out after just a year. He came to East Lansing from Georgia Tech, touted as a master fundraiser. He was executive deputy athletic director at Alabama and served as chief operating officer and chief revenue officer in the athletic department there before going to Tech.
“Across these institutions, J has distinguished himself as a record-breaker in fundraising and as a leader who strategically invests in facilities to maximize resources and revenue,” Kentucky President Eli Capilouto said in the school's hiring announcement.
Batt will succeed retiring Kentucky athletic director Mitch Barnhart, who had the job since 2002. Barnhart won’t take on a high-paying role at the school as was originally planned upon stepping down after Gov. Andy Beshear questioned that decision.
“The championship standard has been established at Kentucky and we are committed to upholding that standard of excellence,” Batt said in the school’s statement.
Hollis had a successful run for a decade as AD at Michigan State before announcing his retirement in 2018 amid the fallout from the sex abuse scandal involving Nassar, a former Michigan State sports doctor who also worked for USA Gymnastics.
He was credited with innovative concepts such as putting a court in the middle of a football field as he did when Michigan State played Kentucky in 2003 at Detroit’s Ford Field in front of a then-world-record crowd of 78,129 at a basketball game.
Hollis, a close friend of Izzo’s, hired Mark Dantonio, who became the school’s all-time winningest football coach.
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AP college sports: https://apnews.com/hub/college-sports
