April 5, 2011 - 2:09pm
Daily exclusive: Coleman on new AD David Brandon
BY KYLE SWANSON
Yesterday afternoon University President Mary Sue Coleman granted The Michigan Daily an exclusive interview on the announcement that David Brandon had been selected as the next athletic director, succeeding Bill Martin. Below is a transcript of the Daily’s exclusive interview.
Q: How did the application process work? Did interested candidates apply or did you reach out to people you thought might make good candidates?
A: We had a mixture that happened with candidates — some people applied themselves and other people were nominated. I believe David was among those candidates who were nominated by several people. What I had asked the search consultant to do was to reach out to people who were nominated and we’d sort of done a preliminary assessment of people that we thought — who had either applied or were nominated, and there was a mixture of both — might fit the criteria, because we had a list of criteria that we had put out with the announcement, and that’s sort of how the pool was developed.
Q: Are you in a position to disclose who had nominated David Brandon for the position?
A: No, all that was confidential.
Q: Is it correct that, even though you formed an advisory committee for the search, you and you alone were the person to make the decision on who to hire as the next athletic director?
A: I made the decision. I was very interested in input and advice from the committee and I received that input and advice, but everyone understood that I made the final choice.
Q: What qualities made David Brandon stand out as the right person for the job in your opinion?
A: Leadership. I think success in almost everything that he’s done. I was interested not only in his business success, which has been considerable, but his success in philanthropy and his success in public service. The way that I had watched him work, and that he demonstrated during his interview, that he had been able to bring people together in a variety of settings to get positive momentum. I was very intrigued by that sort of quality that he has to bring out the best in people and to move organizations forward. That ultimately is what persuaded me that he could take those skills into the setting of intercollegiate athletics. Having understood very much what it’s like to be a student-athlete at the very highest level and the pressures that are on student-athletes, I thought bringing those qualities — and he brings an unusual set of qualities — it’s not only his business background, but it’s having served as a regent and having many touch points within the institution — he served on a committee for business, he’s done things for the School of Education, and he’s done things for Mott (Hospital). I think that brings an unusual set of interactions and characteristics that I thought would go well in many of the same ways that Bill Martin brought.
Q: Do you think there’s any weakness in the Athletic Department or weakness of Bill Martin that Brandon will be able to improve upon when he becomes athletic director?
A: Well Bill set a very high bar for athletics in terms of what he did in bringing in business skills and discipline. Bill Martin was just the perfect person for the time, because we needed very much somebody who understood how to build the financial resources, how to get all the capital projects done, so that was a great legacy to leave. Now I think that what the day brings, times are different now than they were when Bill took over and I think that David will also have the business skills and he’s got the great philanthropy skills. I think he has a lot of management skills that, as the department has grown and it’s become more complicated, we’ll need to pull on those skills as well. So this is a new era and I think David Brandon really is positioned well for the challenges that we’re going to face in the future.
Q: Do you think the role of the athletic director is changing at all?
A: I do. Just like the circumstance for the University as a whole is changing … with the economic issues on the state … a whole new skill set is needed and I think the same thing is true in athletics.
Q: Do you have any comment you’d like to share on Bill Martin’s time as athletic director?
A: I have enjoyed so much working with Bill. I think that his ability to see the big picture and to really take very aggressive stances in terms of the facility renovations that we simply had to do. These were big things to take on, but Bill did them with a lot of confidence — that we could first of all raise the money that we needed, that we could really change the revenue picture successfully for athletics. I just admire him enormously and believe that he’s put us in a really terrific position for the next decade. So, in many ways, David Brandon is walking into a situation that has a firm, firm financial base on the work that Bill did and I appreciate that just enormously. I really have enjoyed having him as athletic director.
Q: Knowing that Martin’s legacy is largely tied to his work in renovating and expanding athletic facilities, do you think there’s more for Brandon to do in the capital improvement arena, like renovations to Crisler Arena?
A: What we’ve done and as Bill has shown and if you go back and you look at some of the regents meetings where he’s talked about the plan for athletics, clearly getting the football stadium done was the big thing that we had to do. Then we think about all the other things that have been done; it’s just terrific. And you’re absolutely right that at Crisler, certainly Bill has gotten that underway with the practice facility. Sometime I hope that we’re going to be bringing the rest of the Crisler renovations — and we may have to do it in phases for the regents — but our goal is to keep going forward. We’ll be needing to present a firm financial plan but I’m very optimistic about that. I think that those recommendations, we’ll be able to bring forward in the future to the regents, because we know that needs to be done. But then what we’re going to have to do is — even though the major things have been completed — we’ll want to make sure at Yost, at some point in the future, we may have to do work on Yost. We want to make sure that all of our facilities, that we’re doing the timely maintenance and upgrades so that we don’t get ourselves in a position where we have to have so many major things that we have to do all at one time. But I feel really good about that, where we are.
Q: Is it fair to say you think that although Brandon will continue Martin’s legacy, he will also build on his work in new or different areas?
A: I think one of the things that David talked about during his interviews was really quite intriguing — how do we enhance the fan experience, how do we use technology to stay more in touch with our fans. There are all sorts of things that we need to be looking at for the future, because people are going to have choices about what they do with their leisure time and we want to keep people connected to the University of Michigan and athletics is a great vehicle to do that. We understand that we want to make a great experience for our student-athletes. I know another issue that David Brandon talked about was integrating athletics better with the academic side of the university. We’ve got pretty good bridges already, but we could strengthen those bridges. There are a whole lot of areas that I know that he’ll be wanting to look into and take over. As well, I’ve talked to him about my desire for him to become really engaged with the issues of the Big Ten conference and also at the NCAA. I think he will be able to represent us in those venues as Bill has done in a spectacular way and I’d like for Michigan to have a seat at the table when a lot of those decisions are made and Dave Brandon will be, I think, a very powerful voice for Michigan.
