Musical chairs with ADs has become popular sport in the SEC
After 7-year stint at Ole Miss, Bjork tries to continue A&M ‘trajectory’
COLLEGE STATION — If real-life experiences are truly emphasized for students angling for sports management degrees at Texas A&M and other Southeastern Conference schools, the curriculum needs one course addition: musical chairs.
It has happened again — an SEC member has snatched away an athletic director from a league sibling.
When it isn’t beating the innards out of each other on a field or court, the SEC enjoys touting itself as one big family and, man, the mighty league isn’t kidding when it comes to the equivalent of in-house underhandedness.
A&M, which joined the SEC in the summer of 2012, on Thursday announced it was hiring Ross Bjork from the same gig at Mississippi, where the native Kansan has resided since 2012. He replaces Scott Woodward, who at least truly headed home last month when he exited A&M for his alma mater LSU.
This isn’t the first time the Aggies have hired an athletic director from the SEC, although last time they were on the cusp of being the 13th adopted kid when they coaxed Eric Hyman from South Carolina in June 2012. Hyman, who was nearing retirement age at the time, joked that a big part of his move was getting closer to his grandchildren in Fort Worth.
Only he wasn’t joking, and Hyman spent much of his fouryear tenure at A&M on cruise control — and cruising right into
retirement. He once told me it was important for A&M fans to “manage expectations” — aka be happy with what they’ve got and be willing to sit back and smell the secondplace (or 10th-place) roses.
A&M replaced Hyman with Woodward, who arrived from the University of Washington with a fire in his belly. The native Louisianan wasn’t afraid to yank the trap door on coaches he believed were underachieving, all the way up until the month before he bolted in axing basketball coach Billy Kennedy.
Woodward also enjoyed busting the athletic department’s budget and, hey, who can blame him considering A&M touts itself as one of the richest institutes of higher learning in all the land. That’s where the supposedly fiscally responsible Bjork comes in, and he inherits a stable setting among the bigger-time sports.
Football coach Jimbo Fisher is entering his second season coming off a 9-4 finish, the highest number of victories by the Aggies since 2013. Woodward replaced Kennedy with Buzz Williams from
Virginia Tech, so the native Texan still has a new-car smell over in the CoxMcFerrin Basketball Center.
And baseball coach Rob Childress is about to take the Aggies to a 13th consecutive NCAA Tournament and perhaps host a regional next week.
Here is the main thing Aggies need to know about Bjork: He passed the Fisher Expedition – the main qualification for a new athletic director at A&M. Fisher was startlingly honest last month when asked if the A&M administration was consulting him about who to hire as his (alleged) boss.
“Yes, very much so,” he said.
Much of the search came down to this: If Jimbo is happy, everyone is happy. Whether they are or not. The Aggies are banking on the no-nonsense Fisher, who led Florida State to a national title in 2013, to do the same at A&M.
A big part of the job of Bjork, who at 46 is seven years younger than Fisher, is to keep clear of the football coach. And give him what he wants when he wants it (notice “wants” instead of necessarily “needs”).
Bjork certainly has experience in crisis management, too, should the need arise. He didn’t hire former Rebels football coach Hugh Freeze, but he oversaw his dismissal two years ago after it was discovered Freeze had used a university cellphone to call escort services.
Later in 2017, the NCAA also hit Ole Miss with a two-year bowl ban and scholarship and recruiting restrictions for a number of infractions, primarily under Freeze, and while Bjork was AD.
Bjork’s “experience” in such matters apparently didn’t concern the A&M administration, which will oversee its fourth athletic director since 2012. Mississippi’s athletic department revenue more than doubled in Bjork’s sevenyear tenure (from $57 million to $117 million). Bjork officially will start in College Station in July, in taking over for interim athletic director R.C. Slocum.
“(Bjork’s) outstanding reputation as a leader will be vital to the continued trajectory of our athletics program,” A&M president Michael K. Young said.
It’s a trajectory A&M hopes, for at least the time being, is void of men in suits playing musical chairs.