GoPowercat.com - K-State introduces Currie as new AD

May 18, 2009

D. Scott Fritchen
GoPowercat.com Assistant Editor

Citing his proven fundraising ability and boundless energy, incoming Kansas State President Kirk Schulz introduced John Currie as the Wildcats' 15th Director of Athletics during a Monday morning news conference. Schulz cloaked the 38-year-old Currie in a purple sports jacket, shook his hand and then got out of his way. Schulz indicated it would be a sign of things to come for an athletic department seeking a rebirth under new leadership.

"I'm going to count on John to run athletics," Schulz said. "I'll certainly be at the games as a fan and I'll be cheering on our student athletes and coaches, but you're not going to find me involved with scheduling or, 'Hey, this is what we need to do.' I'm going to count on John Currie to run our athletics program. I'm going to stay out of his way and support him when he needs it."

The appointment of Currie, the executive associate athletics director at Tennessee, will be effective June 7 and the announcement ends a three-month national search that began in March. Currie received a five-year contract at a base salary of $350,000 per year with incentives to be agreed upon in the first 120 days.

The proof sat in the form of copies of the 27-page employment agreement, which sat stacked next to a news release of the hiring in the Legends Room of Bramlage Coliseum, where reporters, several head coaches and purple-clad athletic support staff convened to learn more about Currie, who like Schulz, arrives absent of any previous ties to K-State.

Both Currie and Schulz used the term "transparency" in describing the athletic department, whose teams often serve as the proverbial front porch to major universities.

"Basically, going back to our environment at Tennessee, Doug Dickey was our athletic director and he sent (former K-State football coach) Vince Gibson out here a long, long time ago," Currie said. "Coach Dickey always said, 'We're an open book, come look, here's what we've got.' The media is going to ask about (the contract) anyway, so why waste all of that time with Freedom of Information Act requests and that kind of stuff."

Schulz said it illustrated the type of fan-friendly university he plans to maintain at K-State.

"We want everybody out there, our fan base, to feel that if there's something it needs to learn about K-State athletics, we're not going to have to dig around and all of that stuff," Schulz said. "We felt with John being the new athletic director and me being the new president, what a way to illustrate that when we say 'transparency,' to say, 'Hey, (the contract) is in the back, you can see everything that's in there.'

"It's the kind of program we're going to have under my tenure as president."

Currie, a native of Chapel Hill, N.C., grew up a baseball and soccer player and under the shadow of Dean Smith, who attended Currie's childhood church in a community painted Tar Heel Blue. While Currie didn't participate in college athletics while an undergrad Wake Forest, aspirations of one day becoming a high school history teacher and soccer coach took a turn when he served as a development intern for the Deacon's Club.

"God has a plan for all of us and God had had a plan for me and here I am," said Currie, a 1993 Wake Forest graduate who earned his masters in sports management from Tennessee in 2003.

Fast forward to Tennessee, where Currie, a key aide to Athletic Director Mike Hamilton, was responsible for the direct management of units that annually produced $84 million in revenue and gifts, including the department's fundraising, marketing, ticketing, media relations, public relations, internet and broadcasting offices.

Currie helped Tennessee to secure a $50 million commitment in 2006 for academic and athletic needs, a gift that represented the largest gift from an individual in Tennessee history. In all, Tennessee athletics gifts went from $19.5 million in 2003 to 41.6 million in 2008 under Currie.

He comes to an athletic department that continues to fight to remain competitive with the likes of Texas, Oklahoma, Texas A&M and Nebraska.

"One thing people in Kansas and at Kansas State have always been proud of is that you've done more with less," Currie said. "You've beat the big-budget schools and you've beat the big Mr. Tradition schools. Kansas State has great tradition and great fans."

Currie said he and Mary Lawrence, his wife of 10 years, would meet with K-State head coaches and their spouses at lunch Monday. On Tuesday, Currie said he will fly to attend the Big 12 meetings in Colorado Springs. When Currie returns to Manhattan, he intends to meet individually with each head coach.

"I think a lot of the problems and challenges will evidence themselves right away," Currie said. "People typically will talk more about what our problems and challenges are and, of course, that's important, because to get better we have to figure out what those problems and challenges are. One of the things I want to make sure that we do here is make sure we honor our past. We have a great past and a great history here in most of our sports and in sports where we don't have a great history or had a sport that long, we want to build toward that."

Currie said he gained an appreciation for K-State fans at the 2001 Cotton Bowl, where he witnessed No. 11 K-State beat No. 21 Tennessee 35-21 in front of a crowd that included an estimated 50,000 Wildcat fans. He offered appreciation for head coach Bill Snyder, who attended Monday's news conference, adding, "I'm glad we're on the same team now."

"We really do have terrific fans," Currie said. "If you've learned nothing else about the economy in the last year or so, whether you want to call them customers or fans -- I prefer to call them fans -- is that you'd better take care of your fans right now because they're going to develop other options or priorities with their dollar and time, which is as precious a resource as the dollar."

Currie made it clear that he and Schulz had an understanding for the direction of the athletic program.

"I knew Dr. Schulz would be aggressive in his presidency and he made it very clear early on that he wanted somebody to run the athletics program, be responsible and be accountable for the athletics program. To me, that's very, very important," Currie said. "Just as he talked about the provost being responsible for academic affairs, he wants the athletic department to be responsible for athletics. That's the way I want to have it. Tell me what you want for me to do. I'll do it, but hold me accountable."

Currie addressed challenges that have recently faced the athletics department, from the hiring and unexpected one-year tenure by former men's basketball coach Bob Huggins to the contract extension and subsequent firing of football head coach Ron Prince with three games remaining in the 2008 season.

"Certainly, I can't change anything that's happened," Currie said. "I'm responsible and accountable from May 18 forward. We'll work to have great communication throughout campus and with support from the president and all of the cabinet members and with great relationships from all of our coaches and student athletes to make sure we're making good, long-term decisions any time we do make a big decision.

"Now, we're going to mess some things up, we're going to make some mistakes along the way. I'm going to make some mistakes. Again, the great thing about that is that I know I'm going to be held accountable, but I'm going to learn from those mistakes and we're not going to hide from anything.

"We're an open book and we want to have a very transparent environment."

It's an environment that Schulz will monitor from the sideline.

"All of us arm-chair athletes want to get in there and mess around with coaching hires -- 'When do we retain? When do we make a change?'" he said. "I'm counting on (Currie) to say, 'Kirk, here's what our situation is and here's my recommendation.' I'm going to let him move forward."

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