Cal names Air Force’s Jim Knowlton athletic director.
Jim Knowlton was the aidede-camp for the commander of Berlin when the Berlin Wall fell nearly 30 years ago.
Knowlton stood on the wall that night, observing the pandemonium on one side while mean-mugging the elbow-to-elbow East German guards on the other.
Despite the challenges of getting to that point, Knowlton knew that what he had worked so hard to accomplish would become the first critical step toward reunifying Germany.
After that kind of experience, fixing the problems with Cal’s athletic department should be a breeze for Knowlton, right?
“I’ll talk to you in about six months and see if I still have any hair on my head,” joked Knowlton, who was hired as Cal’s athletic director Monday, tasked with balancing a debtriddled budget, moving the program into complete Title IX compliance and leading the Bears into a viable future.
“He loves problems, loves challenges,” Chancellor Carol Christ said. “I so much look forward to having him as a
thought partner.
“He’s really just extraordinary.”
Knowlton, a 57-yearold father of five sons, spent the past three years as the AD at Air Force. While juggling 29 sports, 4,000 cadets’ physical education and intramurals, Knowlton oversaw a program that won more conference titles than in any other three-year span, saw decidedly improved attendance at football games, and raised about $22 million for athleticfacility renovations.
Prior to that, Knowlton ran the athletic department at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York. And during a 26-year Army career, he captained the ice hockey team at West Point and taught in the civil and mechanical engineering departments.
The son of educators, Knowlton’s ability to relate to both the academic and athletic sides in Berkeley should help align many with his strategic plan for Cal’s athletic department. Though he’s not scheduled to start until May 21, Knowlton planned to call 25 alumni Monday night.
His contract will be for at least five years, but the financials haven’t been completed. During the first three months, he plans to do a lot of listening and getting a sense of the organization. After about five or six months, he believes he’ll be able to build a plan that blends with what the institution is doing on campus and start solving the athletic department’s biggest challenges.
Christ has mandated that the athletic department budget be balanced by 2020 and that it be compliant with Prong 1 of Title IX by 2021, which means sports participation has to be proportional to the gender demographics of the fulltime undergraduate students (about 52 percent female).
Knowlton echoed Christ’s repeated declarations that cutting any of the school’s 30 sports is a last resort — but he’s aware of the Collegiate Sports Associate’s report that suggests putting teams on probation and possibly transitioning some varsity teams to club sports. CSA estimated that a drop of between 100 and 120 male roster spots might be needed to get into Prong 1 compliance.
“There have been lots of studies and reviews, but there has not been one thing I’ve seen, that with a great group of people like are here, can’t be solved,” he said. “I have not seen a problem that’s not solvable, and I’d love to be part of that journey.”
Knowlton said his four priorities are: supporting student-athletes in the classroom and on playing surfaces, supporting coaches, administration and programs to ensure that winning is achieved the right way, developing mission and strategic plans, and meeting athletic staff, faculty, alumni and the community.
There was some buzz among alumni Monday that Knowlton wasn’t the university’s top choice, but Cal maintained that he was the perfect fit. He started studying the intricacies of Cal’s challenges as soon as the search firm contacted him.
When he got a call to come to the Bay Area and meet the search committee, he was asking as many questions as those on the committee. At one point, he asked: “If you hire me and are high-fiving a year from now, what would I have done in that year?”
Whether he gets those high-fives remains to be seen. But on Monday, he made no attempt to hide his enthusiasm.
“I was thrilled when the chancellor called and made the offer, and my wife would say my feet still haven’t hit the floor.
“I’m already proud of what Cal has done. It’s incredible when you see national championships, All-Americans and Coaches of the Year. There is a great athletic department here at Cal. I want to come in and be a servant leader that helps us continue to grow.”