Although public speculation regarding candidates for the vacant Gophers athletic director position is a list of almost all males, the prediction here is the next AD will be a woman.
First, some background. Chris Voelz was athletic director of the Gophers women’s program from 1988 to 2002 but since the men’s and women’s sports programs were combined no female has led the Athletic Department. Historically—dating back over the past century when there were sometimes few or no opportunities for females to play sports at the University of Minnesota—no woman ever served as director for the entire Athletic Department.
When Minnesota had separate athletic directors for men’s and women’s sports (one of the few such arrangements in the country), it was seen as a strength by advocates for gender equity, and that commitment to equity remains at the University. After Joel Maturi was hired in 2002 to be AD of a combined department, his priority for the next 10 years was to nurture both the women and men in the school’s 25-sport program (more than many universities offer). Although former athletic director Norwood Teague (2012-2015) is accused of sexual harassment of University employees, it remains to be proven his department was unfair toward women’s athletics.
A gender discrimination investigation at the U began months ago after an anonymous complaint was made to the United States Department of Education Office for Civil Rights. It’s believed at the core of the complaint and investigation is the future location of the school’s track for track and field athletes. Women’s track and field accounts for a large portion of female Gophers athletes.
When University president Eric Kaler named Beth Goetz interim athletic director earlier this month the appointment certainly didn’t go unnoticed by federal investigators and others involved with enforcing gender equity. And appointing Goetz, who served as Teague’s No. 1 assistant, is a reminder the University has been proactive in the past regarding hiring opportunities for women and minorities within the athletic department, and is certain to continue on that path.
Clem Haskins was chosen as men’s basketball coach in the 1980s when it was rare for African-Americans to head a major college program. When McKinley Boston was made athletic director in 1991, he was the first African-American AD in Big Ten Conference history. The minority hiring record at the U also includes the appointment of African-Americans Cheryl Littlejohn as women’s basketball coach in 1997 and men’s coach Tubby Smith in 2007.
Filling high profile coaching and administrative vacancies with minorities and women is still unusual in the Big Ten and other major conferences. There are two minority head football coaches in the Big Ten, Penn State’s James Franklin and Purdue’s Darrell Hazell, and Eddie Jordan from Rutgers is the only minority head men’s basketball coach. The conference has two female athletic directors among the league’s 14 schools, Sandy Barbour at Penn State and Julie Hermann from Rutgers. Merrily Dean Baker, the former AD at Michigan State, is the third woman ever to lead a combined men’s and women’s athletic department in the Big Ten. She was Minnesota’s women’s athletic director from 1982-1988.
It’s a good bet Kaler sees the Gophers vacancy as an opportunity to write more history at Minnesota and in the Big Ten. He’s given Goetz, 41, a chance to lead the athletic department for awhile, and perhaps permanently. He told MPR on August 19 he doesn’t anticipate “ramping up” the search for a new AD until late next winter or early spring, with the goal of having a permanent person in the role by July 1. That timeline would certainly provide lengthy evaluation of Goetz who has been at Minnesota since March of 2013.
Goetz worked in high level athletic administrative positions at Butler and Missouri-St. Louis before coming to Minnesota. Her varied administrative background includes areas such as budgeting, gender equity and NCAA policy. Indications are she’s probably interested in moving into the AD job at Minnesota full time. She is already reaching out to those in the community who can help with fundraising, relationships and knowledge about how to run the department. Tomorrow she will meet the committee of volunteers involved with the athletic department’s $190 million fundraising campaign for new and improved facilities.
Goetz likely leads an internal candidate pool for the job because of her experience and responsibilities at Minnesota and other schools. Internal candidates might also include senior associate athletic director Dan O’Brien and baseball coach John Anderson. O’Brien is close to football coach Jerry Kill who should have a voice in the AD selection process. Anderson has been in the department for more than three decades, is highly respected by colleagues and has relationships in the Minneapolis business community.
The question no Sports Headliners source has answered is who Kaler will trust to advise him on the AD hire. It’s likely to be a small inner circle—with the assistance of a search firm—and the decision figures to have strong input from Board of Regents chair Dean Johnson who has become much more visible since Teague’s resignation. The new AD will certainly be well vetted, providing Kaler and Johnson with a high level of confidence there will be no embarrassing personal incidents.
Letting Goetz head the department for close to one year will provide an evaluation period not always present when making an important hire. Will she be the person Kaler wants? It seems likely she will satisfy him during the trial period because of her previous experience, intelligence, work ethic and support both in the department and from the president’s office.
But could something derail the push of Goetz supporters to break the “glass ceiling” in athletics at the U?
Well, it’s not likely she will set off any red flags during the coming months but if Kaler listens to voices that have already surfaced he could go in another direction. Those voices are varied and include advocates of hiring an AD from outside the school with a business background to run the $100 million department and put some steam into the fundraising project that appears stalled at $70 million. An alum like Wall Street and TV personality Pete Najarian puts a charge into those who long have advocated for a charismatic leader who has business relationships and can build more of them. (At the top of attributes needed by any Big Ten AD are the abilities to generate revenues—including by fundraising—and the skill to hire the right coaches in the high profile sports of football and basketball.)
Another voice argues for a hire with an existing and impressive track record as an athletic director. Northwestern athletic director Jim Phillips was described by a Sports Headliners source as a potential “home run” hire if the Gophers could bring him to Dinkytown. Phillips was Kill’s AD at Northern Illinois and the Gophers coach could be president of the man’s fan club.
It would be historical if the Gophers hired Phillips away from Northwestern because the Big Ten has an unwritten policy about member schools not pursuing each other’s athletic directors and coaches. Years ago two football coaches swapped jobs at Big Ten schools, and it’s believed there is no precedent for a Big Ten AD to take the same job at another league university.
The other problem with a Phillips’ candidacy is he reportedly has turned down programs with better reputations than Minnesota to stay at Northwestern. Yet the believers in pursuing Phillips will tell you he is well worth placing Kaler, Kill and a couple of big time athletic department donors on a private jet and flying them to Evanston. It might take nearly a $1 million salary to bring Philips to Minnesota but don’t think the University couldn’t pay that compensation.
Kaler, though, is already embroiled in controversy because of the mess left behind by Teague, and a bold move by the president causing criticism around the Big Ten seems highly unlikely. A safer path would be listening to voices advocating for someone like Gene Taylor who spent 13 years at North Dakota Sate as AD while helping turn Bison football into the best FCS program in the country. Taylor became Iowa’s deputy director in the Athletic Department last year with the goal of better qualifying himself to be an AD at a major school.
Taylor is 57 and he has work experiences at both North Dakota State and Iowa. He’s an upper Midwest guy with an understanding of the culture and people in this part of the country. That alone distinguishes him from Teague, an East Coast native who came here with no relationships and wasn’t that good at developing them.
Taylor’s success in helping build the Bison football program is one of the attributes that should make him attractive to Minnesota. The next AD shouldn’t be a “yes person” to Kill, but he or she should be an ally working effectively with the Gophers coach who is the face of the athletic department. Kill’s success is vital to the future of the department whose finances depend on revenues from football and men’s basketball and men’s hockey. It’s not taxpayer dollars but revenues from the big three sports that mostly pay the bills in the department.
Kaler knows he’s got a good thing in Kill and while he’s likely to listen to the coach’s input, the decision as to the next AD will probably be mostly his and a couple of astute advisers (hopefully with expertise in business and athletics). Unless something unusual happens with Goetz, I doubt he will turn to Taylor or some other outside candidate. The hope of Kaler will be that Goetz and Kill forge a solid working relationship in the months ahead. That will be an important factor on the path to what could be a permanent Goetz hire.
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