WKU Hilltoppers: Todd Stewart Rumors Swirling Once Again
On Monday morning, an inconspicuous radio interview (11:35 mark) about Tennessee athletics on 104.5 The Zone in Nashville released a bombshell across the WKU fanbase.
UT insider Jimmy Hyams was questioned by the show’s hosts Mark Howard and Kevin Ingram about a rumor of WKU Athletic Director Todd Stewart being tied to joining Athletic Director Phillip Fulmer’s staff.
Hyams said he’s heard two potential job opportunities that Stewart could take in the near future; coming on as an assistant athletic director to help UT’s athletic department get leaner (something Stewart knows how to do with WKU’s limited budget constraints) or potentially taking a job in the SEC league office.
Both would potentially offer Stewart more money and higher advancement opportunities, but it would still come as a shock considering they’re not Power 5 head athletic director opportunities.
Chad Bishop from WBKO responded with this when asked about the Stewart rumors:
Stewart has been at WKU since 2008 and has worked his way up from Sports Information Director (under Wood Selig) to Athletic Director, succeeding Ross Bjork in 2012. Under his watch, he has guided WKU from the Sun Belt Conference to Conference USA amidst realignment turmoil and has hired some of WKU’s most successful coaches of the past few decades including Jeff Brohm, Bobby Petrino, Michelle Clark-Heard and Rick Stansbury just to name a few.
Since the move to Conference USA, WKU has the most conference championships of any member program across all sports. Stewart has also engineered many highly anticipated non conference series in the major sports including reviving the Louisville series in football and basketball, as well as Wisconsin and Arkansas coming to Diddle Arena in the coming years.
Prior to WKU, he did work in the Sun Belt Conference office as an Associate Commissioner for Communications as well as previous jobs in NFL communications departments, so the SEC office rumor could be a beckon back to his previous communications background.
Job rumors are nothing new to Stewart, who just a year ago was rumored to be offered the same assistant AD job in the Tennessee Athletic Department. He luckily turned that down last season, but recent news of proposed budget cuts to the WKU Athletic Department may be playing a role in his change of heart.
I think we all know that we’ll eventually lose Stewart one day, but you’d hope it was to a bigger head job opportunity and not an assistant AD job. He not only built upon what Selig and Bjork built, but has become regarded as one of the best up and coming athletic directors in the country. His ability to sell WKU to bigger coaching candidates (Petrino, Stansbury) shows that WKU can dream bigger than their mid-major conference and budget should allow him to.
At the end of the day you can’t completely blame Stewart who’s repeatedly fought WKU’s uphill factors that include the 12th smallest budget in Conference USA and inconsistent fan support despite immense success during his tenure. Let’s hope these are just rumors and he’s stays in the fold for a few more seasons helping WKU continue to grow in the process.
