Grunwald leaving McMaster for NBA job
CAN’T
REMEMBER which stadium it was. Might’ve been Guelph. Doesn’t matter. What matters was the weather.
It was terrible that afternoon. Not only was it chilly during that McMaster football game, but the rain was coming down in buckets and blowing sideways. It was the kind of autumn day you’d want to be inside reading a good book or catching up on your Netflix viewing rather than fighting the elements. Yet there he was in the stands, dripping wet but not budging.
Glen Grunwald may have been the most famous and most recognizable athletics director in Canadian university sports — and at 6-foot-9, certainly the most visible — but on this afternoon nobody could ever say he hadn’t thrown himself into his job.
On Monday, the former general manager of the Toronto Raptors and New York Knicks announced he was leaving the school to become a mediator and arbitrator with a private firm, and a consultant with the Memphis Grizzlies. Not, he says, because he had grown tired of the gig.
“It’s a tough decision,” he says.
So why make the change?
He turned 60 this year. As he explains, those kind of milestones prompt a guy to examine his life and contemplate what’s past and what’s to come. During a stretch at the cottage the other day, he sat with his wife and decided he still felt good, still felt healthy and still felt like he had plenty in the tank.
The next question was, what was left to accomplish?
One of the things he said he wouldn’t mind doing is signing on with an NBA team to do a little consulting. Just something part-time on the side along with his work at Mac. Which made it so strange when the Grizzlies called a couple weeks ago out of the blue to ask if he’d be interested in consulting. Why, yes, as a matter of fact, he would.
Here’s where it gets complicated. He quickly learned that the NBA has rules preventing someone from working for a team and a university at the same time. Basically to avoid tampering or allegations of the same.
“I had to choose,” he says.
The lure of working at the highest level of sport again eventually won out. In addition, he noticed that the top job at Canada Basketball had come open the other week. He hasn’t interviewed for it yet and he acknowledges he has no idea if that would be a good fit, but it intrigues him.
So last Thursday he told the folks at Mac he was moving on. On Monday, it was made public.
Frankly, it’s probably a surprise to some that he was at the school as long as he was. Almost from the day he arrived in Hamilton, there were those who believed he’d be moving on for the next opening on an NBA staff. But he says he’s loved it. Loved the students, loved the atmosphere, loved the environment.
That said, he points out it’s a much bigger job than many expect. This is no softlanding, early retirement gig after his gruelling NBA executive career. The 30 teams and intramural programs under his watch are a lot. The fundraising to find cash for ongoing programs and capital projects is never-ending.
Grunwald leaves just as the heavy equipment is about to arrive on campus to begin construction on a $60-million expansion to the David Braley Athletic Centre. That came together on his watch. If things go well, a similarly massive expansion of the school’s aquatic centre will follow in future years. That fuse was lit under him, as well.
“I feel like I’m leaving the place better than I found it,” he says.
It’s hard to argue that point. Especially when you combine his work with his attitude that’s far more humble than you might expect from a man of his past achievements and fame. There simply isn’t a friendlier, more approachable, less pompous AD in Canada.
The school says it will announce details about the search for his replacement when they become available. Part of those will certainly be centred on finding someone who reinforces the sense that Mac is a major destination for big names in the sports world.
After all, Grunwald’s past, you know. Before him it was former CFL commissioner Jeff Giles. That duo has created an expectation that whoever follows next will be of equal stature. The hunt won’t be easy.
As for that monsoon at the football game, does he remember where it was? “I do,” he laughs.
It was indeed Guelph. September 2015. His second year on the job. He remembers it well enough that he picks up the story. Midway through the second quarter the Marauders were pinned deep in their own end when a monsoon rolled in and turned Alumni Stadium into a movie set for the remake of “The Poseidon Adventure.” From there, he goes into the kind of detail only the players and coaches will likely remember.
As for sticking around rather than running for cover, he says he learned shortly after taking over how much passion and effort the student-athletes put into their games. Particularly when they have to balance their athletics with maintaining grades that will keep them in school. It’s why he’ll still be coming to games in the future (he’s staying in the area). And it’s why he couldn’t leave that day.
Before anyone gives him too much credit, though, he says they should know he thought he was better prepared than he was.
“I had an old rain jacket,” he says, before pausing for a moment or two then bursting out laughing in his instantly recognizable Grunwaldian guffaw.
“It had lost its waterproofing.”
Grunwald leaves as the heavy equipment is about to arrive on campus to begin construction on a $60-million expansion to the David Braley Athletic Centre. That came together on his watch.