New Badger AD Has to Get It

If Chris McIntosh’s entire tenure as UW Madison’s Athletic Director wasn’t disappointing enough, his exit was even worse.

Not only did McIntosh jump a ship that he had steered onto the rocks, but he left for a newly created, cushy and insular job at the Big Ten: Deputy Commissioner of Strategy. Strategy for what? Will he strategize about alienating fan bases? Will be kibitz about how to create losing football programs out of winning ones? Will he show Big Ten schools how to leave half their stands open on Saturday?

This is especially ironic since “strategy” would imply long-term thinking, being able to anticipate what’s coming and adjust to it. Among McIntosh’s few strong points (now that I mention it, try to name a strong point), this kind of thinking was not among them. In fact, it was just the opposite. McIntosh, in concert with the whole UW leadership, fought the future tooth and nail all along. They’ve been stuck on the old, discredited and long-gone amateur, “student-athlete” model. That’s why they’ve been left in the dust in football, the program that produces 80% of the revenue.

And even now, in McIntosh’s last week on the job, they’ve announced that they’re going to hire still more football coaches. It’s getting to the point where every player on the team is going to have his own coach. But that’s typical of this group’s thinking. Athletics, in their view, is in business to create cushy jobs for administrators and coaches. The fans and the players are necessary but annoying.

And on his way out the door, McIntosh grabbed another $1.3 million. That’s right. Under his contract he would have gotten 75% of his salary on the remaining time on his contract should he have been fired. But he also owed the school a like amount if he were to leave early by his own choice. Accept that the language was written in a way that doesn’t count a do-nothing job at the Big Ten as one of the jobs that requires the claw-back. So, McIntosh gets off scot-free. Now, don’t get me wrong. That $1.3 million is a small price to pay to get this guy gone, but it’s still a galling double standard.

So, now as the UW starts to look for a new AD, here are some helpful suggestions from the Sports Department here in YSDA Tower:

1. Everything McIntosh was, go for the opposite. McIntosh was secretive. The new person should be open. McIntosh was arrogant and clueless when it came to public relations and dealing with the fan base. The new person should be warm, honest and respectful of those who have shown up at the games and helped pay the bills all these years. And, most importantly…
2. Pick someone who actually understands where college sports is at right now. There may be some athletes who happen to also be good students, but at least in football and men’s basketball, most of these guys are here to play the game. So, show them the money.
3. Pick someone who can see where this is headed. When players are picking schools based on the best NIL deals and the best chance to play, they’re not “student-athletes.” They’re athletes with agents looking for the best deal. So, the next question is, how do you keep them around? The obvious answer is contracts, but contracts raise a new set of questions. If academic standards are a sham, then why require players to be students at all? Greg Gard just picked up a former pro in the Australian basketball league. There will be more of that. So, now it won’t be a question of academic eligibility, but of years of eligibility unrelated to a year in school. Pretty soon you have to ask yourself why the big revenue sports need to be in a university department at all. Why not end the pretense and spin them off, with a very hefty license fee paid back to the university for use of its name, image and likeness and physical facilities? That kind of thinking is so far from Alvarez-Blank-McIntosh-Mnookin (and for that matter, Evers) as to make your head spin.
4. Pick someone who is entrepreneurial and won’t be afraid to cut costs. This department is bloated with overpaid administrators and too many coaches. Cut positions and replace others with hires at lower salaries.
5. And, finally, for the love of Bucky, don’t include any kind of contract buy-out for the new AD beyond a reasonable severance and don’t include a single dollar in automatic annual pay increases unrelated to performance.

So, is any of that going to be on the table? Not likely. I don’t know much about interim chancellor Eric Wilcots, beyond the fact that he’s got interim in his title. It’s unlikely that he’s going to be a change agent in that role.

Sure, they’ll do better than McIntosh. That’s a very low bar. But will they pick somebody who gets the program off the public dole, runs a leaner operation, respects the fans, treats the players as the businessmen that they are and is a leader to get college sports to a new more honest, more fair and ever-more profitable level? Don’t count on it.