What should Longwood look for in a new athletic director?

In the summer of 2006 Longwood Athletics Director, Rick Mazzuto bolted Farmville for the same post at Cal State Northridge. At the time Longwood was right in the middle of the transition to Division I and was in need of fundraising, facilities, and structure.

A long, odd process played out and in the end, Longwood retained their interim athletic director, Troy Austin, who came to the school as the director of development for intercollegiate athletics.

Austin made his way through essentially four university presidents and navigated tough times. Among fans, he’ll likely have a mixed legacy full of many ups and downs. He was one of, if not the youngest, athletic directors in the country and had one of the most uphill challenges an athletic administrator can face.

Fast forward to present day and the challenges that Longwood faced in the last transition are still top of mind. The biggest difference is that the department is on solid footing with the Big South and the university is on solid footing with its current administration. With that being said, President Reveley does have an interesting challenge of finding an Athletic Director and a CFO level Vice President for the university at the same time.

Top Priorities

When it comes to the top priorities for a new leader for athletics there should be a clear priority for the search… fundraising. Longwood is in pretty dire needs of new facilities for nearly every sport and that’s not possible with a significant investment in capital development. There’s been no shortage of new buildings on campus over the past five or ten years, but when it comes to athletics everything has been “lipstick on a pig”.

Our Lancers remain at a significant disadvantage through facilities alone. Recruits have to buy in through the transcendental abilities of our coaches rather than modern accommodations for practice and competition.

Longwood needs a builder. Someone who can identify prospective opportunities and create relationships that can change the physical landscape of the department.

If we look at Austin’s history, we saw him stick with coaches for a long tenure and even try dramatic hires like Jayson Gee and Ryan Mau. At some point, we need to look beyond coaches for Longwood’s challenges in the win-loss column.

In the right hands…

A lot of people forget that President Reveley was not only a Division I athlete but also is the current president of the Big South Conference. Reveley cares about athletics and has a clear-cut vision for the future of the program.

There is probably already a short list of candidates and person who is already a frontrunner in the president's mind.

Change is an opportunity

While the timing of this move is a bit weird, it creates nothing but opportunity for Longwood and might even give the next administrator a bit of a head start.

If a seasoned individual is brought in, then they can easily audit the “holes” in Longwood’s department, craft a strategic plan, and ask for the allocation of resources to execute that plan. An “outside-the-box” hire can also do the same but with the expectation of executing new ideas.

We can likely scrap the current five-year “scorecard” for the department. While ambitious, it was clear many of the goals outlined in that plan were not going to be executed within the next 15 months.

Most of all this is an opportunity to breath new energy into the department, it’s fanbase, alumni, and the community. It can help to build programs and facilities.

Looking around the state

There has been a slew of athletic director hirings in the state over the past few years, most notably at Virginia, William & Mary, and Richmond. Obviously, none of those are all that comparable to Longwood, we may be able to learn a little from those experiences.

Richmond: Keith Gill resigned from UR on May 10 of last year and the Spiders replaced him with Bucknell AD John Hardt on November 6.

Virginia: Longtime AD Craig Littlepage announced his retirement on September 5 of last year. UVa hired Carla Williams from the University of Georgia AD on October 22 in a swift six-week process.

William & Mary: Terry Driscoll publicly announced his intentions to retire on October 4 of 2016. The Tribe hired Samantha Huge from Texas A&M on March 14 of last year.

Some names and things to keep in mind…

• One advantage Longwood has is that President Reveley’s father just went through this process at William & Mary. While Longwood and W&M aren’t in the same stratosphere for a search like this, Longwood could get a leg up from the institutional knowledge and candidate identification of the elder Reveley.
• Is there a sense of urgency with this hire? Longwood is in capable hands with Michelle Meadows, but will more “high profile” personnel decisions need to be made over the course of the search? Coming into this athletic year it wouldn’t be a stretch to say Ryan Mau and Jon Atkinson are on the hot seat. Atkinson is 3–4 early on this year and obviously, Mau’s team hasn’t taken the field yet. It’ll be interesting to see if these “situations” need to be addressed while Longwood has an interim administrator.
• Some early names to keep in mind right now might be the aforementioned Keith Gill and Virginia Tech’s Omar Banks. Gill is now an administrator for the Atlantic 10 Conference, but he may be looking for an opportunity to redeem himself after his experience at UR. He’s close with Troy Austin, Duke connections, which could play a role one way or another. Banks is a talented administrator who came to Tech with Whit Babcock from Cincinnati. His skill set is more internal relations, rather than fundraising, but also has local ties as a football player at Richmond and earning a masters degree at VCU.
• One name that might pop up is that of William & Mary basketball coach Tony Shaver. Shaver will turn 65 this year and some Tribe fans remain frustrated by the lack of NCAA Tournament appearances. With a new AD, Shaver could be feeling some pressure despite his tremendous success in Williamsburg. There is an obvious Farmville-Reveley-Aldrich connection here and Shaver may be looking for a different pace of life and could come back “home”.
• Look beyond higher ed. President Reveley has certainly made some “untraditional” hires in the past, so it would be no surprise if Longwood’s next AD comes from the private sector. That certainly isn’t that foreign when it comes to ADs across the country.