Meet the new Husky AD; same as the old Husky AD

Published 11:46 pm Wednesday, September 17, 2008

SEATTLE — After nine months of searching for his school’s next athletic director, University of Washington president Mark Emmert eventually found the answer right down the hall.

Scott Woodward, who has served as the acting athletic director since Todd Turner stepped down Jan. 31st, takes over the job permanently effective immediately, Emmert announced Wednesday.

Emmert dismissed the notion that the school settled on Woodward after failing to find a suitable candidate.

“We conducted a search that was much more thorough than was generally recognized,” Emmert said. “I spent a great deal of time talking to candidates all around the country. I personally interviewed a dozen or more individuals who were sitting ADs at universities, senior associate athletic directors, non traditional candidates, and a variety of others. I sent forward about a half dozen of those people to the search committee who met with those candidates. They were people from all walks of life in athletics. They were all very anxious about this opportunity to come join the University of Washington, but in the end I concluded that the person who was best suited for this job is the one who had it right now, and that’s Scott Woodward.”

Woodward, 45, followed Emmert from LSU to Washington in 2004, and was previously working as the school’s vice president for external affairs. He was still doing that job while working as the acting athletic director.

“Moving Scott into this job is unequivocally the right thing for the University of Washington and for University of Washington athletics,” Emmert said. “For me, when all was said and done, this was actually a very easy choice. There were many people that would like to have this job. There is no question that we have our challenges in facilities and a variety of other areas, but the fact remains that this is one of the great programs in the country and I know Scott is excited to take it on.”

After taking the interim job last winter, Woodward said early on that he was considering pursuing the permanent AD position, but in May announced that he would not seek the job because Emmert needed him more in his current job.

Eventually, however, Emmert decided Woodward was the best man for the AD job.

“What changed for me was looking at the cross section of candidates that were out there, all the people that I met with,” Emmert said. “I didn’t find one that I could place anywhere near the level of confidence in that I could with Scott. He was clearly far and away the best candidate.”

Emmert said he “didn’t come close” to offering the job to another candidate before Woodward, and that the time it took to make a decision was not as unreasonable as some people have made it out to be.

“I know there’s a sense out there that this has been a long, drawn out, and even speculation that it was a troubled search,” he said. “In all candor, that’s sort of nonsense. A nine month timeline’s not unusual in our business.”

For Woodward, the two high-profile tasks will be finding funding for Husky Stadium renovations and deciding the future of football coach Tyrone Willingham, who is 11-28 in the fourth year of a five-year contract.

Woodward said that he is unlikely to make a decision on Willingham during the season.

“We’re going to discuss the season after the season, and it’s going to be done collaboratively with president Emmert the folks that we have a great deal or respect for, and we’ll go from there,” said Woodward, a 1985 graduate of LSU and native of Baton Rouge. “It’s still to be evaluated at the right time, and now’s the right time in my opinion. But I do have a philosophy that you judge a body of work at the end of the season, and that’s how we’ll do it.”

Woodward acknowledged, however, that the current state of the football team, which has lost 18 of its last 23 games, is not acceptable.

“No, I’m not happy,” Woodward said. “Nor is coach Willingham, nor are the student athletes who participate in football. No one’s happy. I go out to practice every single day and I’m in the training room every single day and I’m in the study hall and I’m in the training table every single day. And I see these kids and I look in their eyes, they’re not happy, but they’re working hard, they’re nowhere near quitting, and they’re going to give it their best. This is early in the season and it’s premature to talk about anything but supporting these Huskies and supporting them as best as we can.”

While he doesn’t have a firm position on the topic, Woodward said he would lean towards either extending Willingham at the end of the season or terminating the contract, rather than have Willingham finish out the existing contract.

Woodward said fixing football is one of his “Top priorities,” but said that the idea of winning without compromising values is part of what attracted him to the job.

“As a southerner I can say this, this is self indicting: there is too much of an emphasis on collegiate athletics in the south,” he said. “We are academic institutions first, and athletics are an important part of that mission, but it gets a little out of whack there. So the president asked me to oversee that, mainly from an external standpoint, when we were at LSU. So yeah, the bug kind of bit me there. I said, ‘We can do things the right way and it can benefit the overall university.’ And I come into this job in that vein.”

As for the stadium renovation, Woodward is confident that the school can raise half of the estimated $300 million needed through donations, added premium seating and increase in price to existing premium seating. He hopes to get the other half by getting King County to extending the existing tax on hotels, rental cars and restaurants that is being used to pay for Safeco Field.

Woodward’s work on the stadium fund-raising campaign was one of the reasons Emmert decided to move his right-hand man to the school’s lower campus.

“It went from frankly being stalled out and not going anywhere to much clearer, crisper set of goals and objectives and a game plan,” Emmert said. “He just grabbed a hold of it and that was very impressive.”

A contract has not been finalized, but Emmert said he expects to agree to a five-year deal with Woodward that will be in line financially with the pay of other Pac-10 athletic directors.

Randy Hodgins, Washington’s director of state relations, will take over Woodward’s external affairs job on an interim basis.

Contact Herald Writer John Boyle at jboyle@heraldnet.com. For more on University of Washington sports, check out the Huskies blog at heraldnet.com /huskiesblog