📡 Bill Battle stepping down/ Greg Byrne announced as new AD

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[alabama mike]

This is a wonderful hire in my opinion.

 

[bamachine]

So we will go from weekly Battle Plans to weekly Byrne Notices.

 

[18Champs]

Heard Cecil Hurt talking on local sports radio this morning, he said Byrnes was our first choice. If that is indeed the case, I'm glad we got him.

From an Arizona perspective on the hire:

Boivin: Inside Alabama's hiring of Arizona Wildcats AD Greg Byrne

 

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[TerryP]

One of the things Byrne has been praised for is his ability with fund raising and improvements.

One of the things over looked with Battle--perhaps not over looked just not publicized as it should have been--was in the same arena.

When Battle took over Alabama had nine members of the Bryant Society. In his four years in Tuscaloosa that number has grown to 25, 26 or something around that number.

 

[planomateo]

Another good read on Byrne.

 

[TUSKtimes]

Lots to what Dodd had to say about the future ambition of the Crimson Tide. If we could ever get like Florida and get us a few SEC All-Sports trophies, that would be something. When you think about some of the recent NCs we've won, might not take all that long.


Check out part of Dodd’s column below:

It’s pretty simple on the surface: Byrne was hired to make what could possibly be the most important college football hire of a generation. That is, replace Nick Saban. Maybe. Someday. All Byrne needs to do for now is get along with the great and powerful coach.
With Byrne’s hiring, Alabama is making a statement it wants to be the best at, well, everything. Byrne’s biggest accomplishment at Arizona may have been signing Sean Miller to an extension in 2011 after the basketball coach spoke with Maryland.
Arizona is a national basketball program that has soared under Miller and Byrne. Football coach Rich Rodriguez has plateaued recently, but his hiring was seen as a landmark in athletic administration. Byrne tweeted out the hiring of Rodriguez in 2011.
Alabama will continue to soar under Byrne. His name comes up for just about every major job that his open, most recently at Florida and USC.
​

 

[John Talty |]

How Alabama secretively landed one of the nation's top athletic directors without anyone finding out.

Continue reading...

 

[planomateo]

How Alabama secretively landed one of the nation's top athletic directors without anyone finding out.

Continue reading...

Pulled from this article. It's my opinion this speaks to what Mal Moore did at the University more than what Saban has done. I didn't always see eye to eye with Mal, I gave him a ton of crap for some really terrible hires, but he pulled off the greatest hire of all. Bryant Denny construction in the middle of a damn recession...Can't have Saban without Moore.

After decades of staying in the Alabama family at the athletic director position, school officials saw value in bringing in an outside perspective. They put out early feelers to Byrne, the then-Arizona athletic director, and indicated interest in the 45-year old rising star. At the time, Byrne was viewed as the frontrunner to become the next Florida athletic director but pulled himself out of the running in September to stay at Arizona. The underlying reason he said no to Florida, according to sources, was his immense interest in coming to Alabama.

"He made it very clear that Alabama was his dream job," a source said.

 

[planomateo]

 

[planomateo]

 

[TerryP]

She's happy.

 

[TerryP]

Battle still doing his part.

 

[planomateo]

Guess Rita didn't get to Regina quick enough :bolt:

Believe one of his sons is a student at Arizona and the other at TCU. Cool they made it out to see this.

 

[Alabama17Tide]

Tuscaloosa media interview with Greg Byrne

The media sat down with the new AD for about 30 minutes today. Here's all 5,000 words of what he (and we) said in our first meeting:

There were some reports that you were a candidate at Florida earlier…

“First of all, I want to say that Scott Stricklin, the AD at Florida is one of my very best friends. When I left Mississippi State, he replaced me. Sometimes things get out there in the media that get a life of its own. I was never offered the Florida job. It wasn’t one of the wink-winks. I was not offered the Florida job. Scott was. They have a great athletics director at the University of Florida. That’s worked out great for Scott for Florida, that’s worked out great for me, and hopefully, you all will say for the University of Alabama.

“I can tell you, like I talked about when I first came down here, I’ve admired the University of Alabama, really even in my younger years when I’d never been here. I used to watch Keith Jackson call the game, Coach Broyles do the color, and even when Coach Bryant was coaching, I remember some of those games. Having grown up in collegiate athletics my entire life, you just looked at Alabama as the pinnacle. I just can’t believe how fortunate we are to be here and be a part of it.”

You went over and had dinner with Nick, what was that experience like?

“I think anytime… When we went to Arizona, I wanted to meet with Sean Miller. We had a lot of mutual friends. Same with Mike Stoops at the time. We didn’t go over to dinner, but we went over to the Saban’s house and we were there for a few hours. Miss Terry was great, Coach Saban was great. We talked about a lot of things, about Alabama football and the Unviersity of Alabama, Alabama athletics. I asked him a lot of questions and was able to get some great insight from him. To be honest, when we got done, I felt – and I can’t speak for him – but I felt that the meeting couldn’t have gone any better and felt very comfortable after the fact that this would be a wonderful coach to work with.”

In terms of your age, what do you think you bring to the job?

“There are some mornings where I wake up and I don’t feel as young as I used to. I do feel one of my strengths is just the approach I take. Coach Battle, the job he did is remarkable. Here’s a guy that took this job to serve the university. He didn’t take this job because his goal in life was to become an athletics director. He’s an old coach, and did really well in the licensing business as well. One of the great leaders of our industry as a whole. There are things from him that I very much want to emulate and Coach Moore as well. I asked him, I said ‘I hope you’ll take me around and introduce me to a lot of them,’ and he said he’d be more than willing to do that. He’s such a classy man, and Mary as well. I’m who I am, and I’m going to bring a lot of energy to the University of Alabama and to the athletics department and hopefully be engaging in the community as well. From Coach Battle’s perspective, I’m just glad he’s going to be here and be here as a source of great support, and I’m going to rely on that regularly.”

You have a reputation as a fundraiser. What makes you so good at that?

“When I meet with young people who want to get into our industry, I say I got into fundraising because I don’t have any skills. But I can ask people for money. A good fundraiser gets turned down more often than a bed sheet, so you have to be prepared to be told no as well. On the serious side of the answer, I like people. I like people that are passionate about the university. I told our staff back at Arizona, yesterday or the day before when I said goodbye to them, how fortunate are we that we get to be around 18-22-year-old kids every day and be a part of athletics. The passion the fans have and what that means. Just to go out and engage people and talk about giving and supporting in a manner to help us. Right, wrong or indifferent, there’s very few things in our society, if anything, that has the passion that college athletics has. That brings people together, it doesn’t matter your political views, doesn’t matter your religion, doesn’t matter your socioeconomic status, that everybody comes together for that. Not many things in our society where that’s the case. Sometimes people are critical of college athletics, and I say I think we need more things like college sports. To be able to go out and talk about that and sell that and engage people in that, I’ve enjoyed doing that and am hopefully going to be able to continue to do that.”

How much easier is it to do that when your football team averages 14 wins a season?

“Yeah, tell you what, I do believe this, you’re smarter and better looking when you win. I need all the help I can get with both those things. The historical ride that Alabama football has been on is incredible, and that engages people. Look at the growth of the university in the last 10 years. I remember coming down here 15 years ago and seeing what it looked like then, which was great, and what it looks like now is even better. You can’t help but say that athletics and football in particular have been the engine that’s driving that train in many aspects. It’s incredible to have a chance to be a part of that.”

Anything you know you need to do right away, as far as facilities goes?

“When I get here in the first of March, I’m going to spend a lot of time using these and using these (points to eyes and ears), and not as much using my mouth. I’m going to listen. I can’t wait to go on a facility tour. I know last Saturday, it got reported, (name indiscernible) and I took an hour-and-a-half walk of campus. And it’s beautiful as it is. But that doesn’t mean that you stay satisfied in that. You have to continue to reinvest in your success. I think this would be a good story to tell. Cecil, I don’t know if you know this one, but in 1989… this is a basketball story. In 1989, there was a school that was one of the winningest programs of all time, and they probably didn’t invest in their success as much as they needed to, and they had fallen off significantly from that time. It can happen to anybody if you aren’t having that vision for the future. So while things are going extremely well here right now, we want them to continue in the future, you always have to look ahead and say ‘What are those next steps?’ So sitting here today, I probably couldn’t answer that as well as I could six months from now or a year from now. There are facility master plans and all we’ll work through those. Those things, when you have them, they’re fluid and they’ll continue to evolve in time and I expect that as well.”

Bill Battle said he didn’t want to replace a football coach in his time here. That will likely happen in your time here. Is that something that came to your mind?

“When I was with Coach Saban the other day, he looked to be in very good shape. I hope he’s the football coach for a very long time. One of the greatest ones ever. The fact that I get to work with him, I’m thrilled about it. When that time comes, that time will come, but I certainly hope that it’s nowhere near in the immediate future and it’s many years down the road.”

Had that entered your mind as a possibility?

“I’d read a couple things where that had been mentioned. I hadn’t thought about it beforehand. I’m kidding.”

What did you learn from your dad?

“One of the many things I learned from my dad and my mom, too. Both of my parents were the first people in their family to go to college, and grew up in a blue collar environment, both in small towns in Idaho. One of the things I watched with them is how well they treated people. Didn’t matter who they were. If they were digging a ditch or if they were CEO of a company. That’s one of the things that I’ve tried to take in my approach. Every one of us wants to feel valued in what we do. We want to bring value to the media outlet you’re involved in, the organization or business or church, whatever it is that you’re engaged with. You want to bring value as a father, a mother, hopefully as a son or a daughter. The fact that people here at the University of Alabama support this university, support this athletics program, support the football program in the manner in that they do, you don’t take that for granted and you thank people for that. You appreciate the efforts they make. Because for some person, it may be the best thing they can do is go buy a Crimson Tide t-shirt and wear it around and that’s the support they can give. Maybe somebody else can buy two season tickets and come to a gymnastics meet, which obviously gets great crowds too. I know it’s already happened in this department but I hope we can continue to have it evolve with how much we appreciate the fans and what they mean for the athletics program.”

Without getting into Pac-12 is this, SEC is that, what interested you about coming here?

“The roots that I have here. Even though I grew up out west, and I really admire the Pac-10 and now the Pac-12. It’s a great conference, beautiful conference. I’ll say something interesting to you. When we were in Tucson, Arizona, you’re as close to a number of the SEC schools as you are Washington, Washington State, Oregon, Oregon State. The geography there is extensive. Which is really interesting to be a part of that and grow with that, but at the same time, the fans don’t travel quite the same. I don’t mean that as a criticism, it’s just a lot of geography in that time. And so my eight years of living in the SEC footprint before coming back now… Scott Stricklin and I talk three, four days a week. Now that he’s on eastern time, I go to work early, so we usually talk about 8:00 his time. Greg Sankey, if any of you follow me on Twitter, we have some exchanges there. Mitch Barnhart, whom I owe so much to, and really admire Jeremy Foley although I know he’s retired. Chuck Long and I are great friends. We have a lot of great companionship in this conference. Obviously the competition is at the highest levels and we all want to beat each other, no doubt about that, but at the same time there’s incredible camaraderie. Jay Jacobs and I have been friends for a long time.”

You’ll be the first Alabama AD on Twitter. What’s your approach there?

“Well if you’re going to be on Twitter, you have to get used to hearing some comments here and there. I am fortunate, I do have pretty thick skin, having grown up around this my entire life. I’ll tell you a story: I think I was in seventh grade, and the Oregon-Oregon State football game was not on television. My dad was AD at Oregon. Somebody wrote a letter to the editor about how my dad and the AD at Oregon State should be fired because the game wasn’t on TV. I was mad. Then I remember my dad saying ‘Son, if you want to be an athletics director you have to have some pretty thick skin. You have to let that go.’ That stayed with me my entire life. We’re all human, some things can hit below the belt, so to speak. But I do like having an interaction with the fans. I think it engages you, gives you a little bit of a pulse of what’s going on. You can’t make decisions based on what your Twitter account says. But at the same time too, I think I put down as my Twitter goals, to engage, communicate and have some fun. I do like to laugh, I have a bit of a sense of humor and hopefully it comes through now and then through how I use Twitter.”

So that won’t be someone else managing your Twitter account?

“No, it’ll be me. And I’ll ease into it. I’ve been a little quiet for the last few days, but I’ll ease into it.”

First order of business: Get Nick Saban on Twitter?

“I’ll let him make that decision. If he wants to do that or not.”

Beyond being a rallying point, what do you see as the mission for athletics in supporting the university overall?

“Here at the University of Alabama, it’s such an important part of the culture and the tradition. And the university has embraced it. I commend the leaders of the past, the current leaders and the leaders of the future and the university community and the fans. That’s because the reality is that if everybody is pulling that rope in the same direction, you can have a lot of great things happen. The course of support the University of Alabama brings collectively is very special, very unique. That’s absolutely one of the strengths.”

Sometimes when these changes are made, a football coach, basketball coach or AD, it’s a need thing, because something bad has happened. Do you almost feel like your job is to not wreck the car?

“It certainly is not broken, that’s for sure. It’s so strong, so I believe a couple of things. One is to stay very focused. Don’t be complacent. Provide leadership that allows those things to happen. I think that’s going to be very important for the coming years. We have a great staff of people here to learn from and grow with. One of my favorite books is ‘Who moved my cheese?’ It’s one of those things I try to read once a year, because you can’t just expect that cheese to be there every time you go to eat. You need to continue to evolve in what you do, and I think that’s really important. To get back to the question about age, I hope that’s something I’ll offer a good perspective on going forward.”

Did you learn some basketball things at Arizona you can maybe apply here going forward?

“Sure. I actually often say that back there, the Pac-12 program that most resembles an SEC program is the University of Arizona. Basketball is a lot of the focus of that. At the Pac-12 tournament each year in Las Vegas, Arizona will have about 65 or 70 percent of the crowd in there, and the U of A chant will come out with two other teams playing on the court, and the U of A chant takes over the arena. Seeing that passion and helping engage and manage and bring that along was something that I learned a lot from, and hopefully that’s a strength that will do well here at the University of Alabama.”

Nick Saban is the highest-profile employee in the state. What’s your philosophy on being the boss of that person?

“It’s a partnership. You want to work together. I can sit to you today and say that I have an incredible appreciation for what Coach Saban and Miss Terry mean to the University of Alabama, the state of Alabama, college football and football in general. To this community. I think a year from now, I think I’ll be able to say I have an even better appreciation of that. So that’s something that I’ll continue to evolve and work with and you just want to do everything you can to support him and support the program because of the importance of what it means for the University of Alabama.”

How important was it to go over there on Saturday and get the rubber stamp of approval?

“What I was wanting to do was just go in there and just have a good conversation with him, and that’s what happened with him and with Miss Terry and Regina. Miss Terry and Regina hit it off really well, and coach and I just sat there and talked, talked about a lot of different things. We walked away and I really enjoyed the conversation. My goal out there was to have it be a good conversation and one that hopefully both sides like. I certainly can’t speak for him, but I certainly did.”

Did you already have the job at that time?

“No, sir. I took it that night.”

What sold you on the University of Alabama?

“I mean, it’s Alabama. As a guy that’s been around intercollegiate athletics my entire life, it’s absolutely the pinnacle. After I move in here… I’m not very good at decorating my office, it’s not one of my strengths at all. I’m going to need some help with that. But I’m going to have this wooden box, a wooden framed box. It’s been in the media at Arizona, it’s a report from the fourth grade. I think it was Mrs. Osborne’s class if I remember correctly. You did your career report. My career report was being an athletic director and an assistant athletic director. While most kids were talking about being a firefighter or an attorney or a sports journalist or whatever it was, I wrote about being an AD. I admired, even at that young age, what the University of Alabama was. To have that opportunity to be here is really incredible. I can’t thank Dr. Bell and the trustees enough for this opportunity. They’ll probably be able to answer it better than I can. I’ll tell you what, when things have gone well, I’ve gotten much more praise and attention that I deserve because it’s a group effort in everything that you do. And part of that is that when you’re an AD and things don’t go well, you get a little bit more criticism than maybe what you deserve, but that goes with the territory. I just can’t thank everybody enough for the opportunities we’ve been given.”

Did you allow yourself to dream this might be possible one day?

“I knew, you never know each time what the university is looking for. My dad went to the University of Nebraska in 1992 and replaced the legendary coach, Bob Devaney. Coach Devaney had been the AD a long time. Even though they’d had people who had not been Nebraska guys before, in the modern time he was the first guy to do that. And so it does happen at some very good programs. They were fortunate when he was there to have some success. You watch programs and each time a coach or athletic director is hired at a program, especially programs as prestigious as the University of Alabama, what fits at that time may be different than what it was 10 years ago.”

You’ve been an AD long enough now, how has it evolved for you from when you started?

“Well, think about your industry. It’s changing a lot, isn’t it? Some of it is probably really good, some of it is probably challenging. And I think the same thing is going on in college athletics. I know nobody in this room has ever said anything critical about college athletics, right? That’s a joke. But for those of us who are inside an athletic department on a daily basis, it’s not a perfect industry. Name me one that is. I can’t find one. But what you get to do is you get to be around an incredible bunch of young people, 18-22 years old that you hope are going to make by far the majority of good decisions, academically, athletically and socially, and sometimes there’s different things pulling them in different directions. Those things have continued to evolve, what those things are. But I think it’s something that at the end of the day when you look at it, it’s still really special. It’s still really fun to get to watch these young people come in at 18 years old, watch them grown and mature, probably make a mistake or two along the way. Sometimes they’re the third generation, fourth generation of people that are graduating from college in their family, sometimes they’re the first ever in their family. And they all come together from all kinds of different backgrounds and experiences and they all come together for the Alabama Crimson Tide. That’s internally for the athletic department and externally for the fan base. So that has continued to evolve, and trying to manage that, I think communication has changed a lot. Both how you manage communication with your student athletes and how you manage it with your fans. Everything today is so instant, and that’s hard to manage in an environment like that. But we’re going to do our best to try and do it the best way that we can.”

You had a year off after Kentucky before you went to Mississippi State. What was the story there?

“Best experience I ever had. Probably the best decision I ever made, beside marrying my wife and having a family and all that. One of my many weaknesses, and we all have plenty of weaknesses, one of my many was my patience level. I was in a hurry to be an AD. I was a finalist for the AD job at Utah State when I was 31 years old and I didn’t get it, and you know what? That’s good I didn’t get it. At the time I didn’t understand that. One of the top donors at Kentucky was starting an upstart company and he and I had a good relationship, I told him, I think I want to do this the rest of my career but I wasn’t 100 percent certain. He gave me an opportunity to go to work for his company. Good people. Good company. Ended up selling it and doing real well with it. It was the best thing I ever did because I was miserable. I didn’t enjoy going to work everyday, which was actually at my house. But I wanted to be a dad, I wanted to be engaged with my kids, which I was. I’ve always made sure I was engaged with my kids but wanted to take it to another level. Probably had more nights and weekends free than what college athletics has to offer. It was the best thing I ever did. My dear friend John Currie, who was the AD now at Kansas State, he called me and I told him how much I missed it. He told me there may be an opportunity at Mississippi State. I was going to be in Birmingham the next week for business, so I called Larry Templeton and I drove over and I saw Larry and he almost hired me on the spot. So I mentioned Larry earlier, I’m always going to be thankful for him. It was a great, great learning experience so when I got back in at Mississippi State, my appreciation, my patience skyrocketed. When I stopped worrying about when I was going to be an AD, then all of a sudden Larry says he’s going to retire, six months later I was the AD at Mississippi State. Who would have thunk? It was a great life lesson for me. When I went to Arizona, I didn’t pursue Arizona. I didn’t pursue Alabama. I didn’t even know Alabama was going to be open. And so as my patience grew, the opportunities presented themselves in time just by staying focused and working hard.”

What’s the hardest part about being an AD at a place like this?

“I may tell you something different a year from now than what I tell you today. I think one of the biggest challenges is trying to balance your time and your priorities. You can’t be all things to all people. I know at Arizona I got pulled in a lot of different directions and I think here at Alabama I’ll be pulled in a lot of different directions. One of the great things here is that the staff here has a lot of experience and they’ll be able to guide me and help support our department. So I think finding that balance, because we’re going to support all the sports. If I’m in town, I’ll be at whatever sport is competing as much as I can be. I’ll say to the staff here at some point, this is a lifestyle, it’s not a job. You’re six, seven days a week for 10, 11 months out of the year. You do well in baseball and get to Omaha, you go all the way to the end of June. That’s where you want to be and what you want to be a part of. Omaha’s great. One of my favorite sporting events. It’s a lot of fun.”

How important is it to have top of the line facilities? Maybe some talk about Coleman and basketball.

“Facilities are critical. Reinvesting in your success and continuing that foundation for the future, you just can’t hit the pause button. What we’re really fortunate for here is that the infrastructure for the most part, is really, really good. That doesn’t mean that you just stop, because the importance of recruiting, the importance for student athletes in every aspect, academically, athletically and socially in what you do, all those are critical and facilities are a big part of that.”

What would you like to be known for in your time here?

“I hope my career ends here at the University of Alabama in a good way. It’s something where our student athletes and our coaches and our football program feels like, as an AD, as an athletic department, we’ve gone out to compete every single day and compete in every aspect of what we do. That we’ve enjoyed being here and being a part of this, but also competing at the highest level. When you’re an AD, you’re going to make decisions some people aren’t going to like and that’s a part of it. You have to understand that. But you also hope people feel like you’ve made the best decisions you can for those student athletes, for the university, for your programs, for your fans.”

What company provided Arizona’s uniforms?

“Nike.”

How valuable a branding name is Alabama? There’s a contract coming up here in the next couple of years.

“Nike is a great company. And I want to make it very clear how much I love the Alabama football uniforms.”

Yeah, you’re hearing some of that already.

“Cecil, I saw your tweet yesterday. I had a funny response to it, but I decided to leave it alone this early on. I thought that was great that you did that.

“I met Phil Knight for the first time when I was about 15 years old and my dad was AD at Oregon. Nobody in the west had a skybox. My dad was always really good at forward thinking, so there was a single skybox at the time, about the 20 yard line of Autzen Stadium in Eugene. Brady Brooks, who you know Coach (Rich) Brooks at Kentucky for a while? Mitch Barnhart hired Coach Brooks. So Coach Brooks was at Oregon when my dad was the AD. And I love Coach Brooks. He called me yesterday or day before, just as excited as I could be. His son Brady and I would ball boy for the visiting team. We go up to the skybox at halftime because we’re teenagers and we’re going to eat everything that’s not nailed down, and there’s a gentleman standing in the corner of the box by himself, and he had the very first pair of Air Jordans on. I said to my mom ‘Who’s the guy with the scruffy beard and mustache? He’s got Air Jordans on.’ And she said ‘That’s Phil Knight, the founder of Nike.’ My dad was trying to engage him for Oregon at the time, and everything. That was the first time I ever met Phil. He is a college athletics fan and a half. So I’ve seen him a lot over the years and have a good relationship with him and Nike has been a good partner for the university of Alabama.”

Nick Saban uses his platform to advance issues for college football. Considering the influence Alabama has in college sports, do you plan to do the same thing?

“The stage here at Alabama allows you to do that. And I’ve always paid attention to things that Coach Saban has said from afar because they’re always very well thought out. Before I knew this opportunity was going to come along, I always listened to what he had to say. I think he cares very much obviously about the University of Alabama, but also about the game of football. And so as an athletics director, our evolving time… you asked about how it’s evolving. I think the platform that you have here, you’ll have a voice in how college athletics is shaped in the future.”

From a selfish standpoint, what’s your opinion on dealing with the media?

“I try to be very accessible. I understand each market is different. There are more guys sitting around this table than would be in Tucson, Arizona. So we’ll work with Doug and his team and hopefully have a good, solid, working relationship together.”

Ben Jones
TideSports.com Editor

Greg Byrne Q&A transcript (long) | TideSports.com

 

[planomateo]