Warren rebounds after rocky start in Big Ten
INDIANAPOLIS » Kevin Warren introduced Ohio State’s Ryan Day at Big Ten media day, the final coach to take the stage at the two-day event, and the two men exchanged a hearty hug and smiles before posing for a photo.
“I want to congratulate Commissioner Warren on a great couple of months leading this conference into the future,” Day said Wednesday as he began his 15 minutes at the podium to talk about the Buckeyes.
A little less than two years since Warren was pilloried inside and out of the Big Ten for the conference’s decision to postpone the fall football season because of the pandemic, the 58year-old is now sitting atop an expanding empire that has never been more powerful.
Earlier this month the Big Ten announced USC and UCLA will join the conference in 2024. In the coming weeks, Warren and the Big Ten are expected to unveil the conference’s new media rights deal that could be worth $1 billion annually.
To put it in sports terms, Warren’s comeback has been more impressive than Ohio State erasing a 14-point deficit to beat Utah in the Rose Bowl.
Given the opportunity to spike the ball at Lucas Oil Stadium this week and revel in the redemption of his reputation, Warren took a pass.
“The moment that you use any energy to distract from the energy that you need to accomplish your goal, it can have negative ramifications on it,” Warren told the AP.
Warren’s hiring in 2019 to replace Jim Delany was a surprise inside the industry. The lawyer and former longtime executive with the Minnesota Vikings with no experience working in college sports was an unorthodox choice at a time when there was so much change on the horizon.
Then the pandemic hit and any chance Warren had to grow into the job went away. He immediately needed to shift into managing an unprecedented crisis while getting to know the university leaders he works for and athletic directors he works with.
On Aug. 10, 2020, the Big Ten announced it would not play football in the fall. The decision was made on majority vote by the league’s presidents and chancellors, but Warren became the target for critics. None louder than in Columbus, Ohio, home of the Buckeyes.
Infuriated fans, disgruntled parents of players and frustrated coaches and athletic directors who disagreed with the decision questioned Warren’s fitness for the job. And some people did much worse.
Warren said he received death threats that forced him to hire security and change the way he traveled. He said he looks back on that decision without regrets, but also concedes some of the criticism was valid.
“I think he’s really learned that working across the board with the presidents and the chancellors and the athletic directors and faculty athletic reps, how vitally important that is in this business,” Maryland athletic director Damon Evans said.
Eventually, the conference reversed its decision in the fall of 2020 and played an abbreviated season that put Ohio State in the national championship game.
“This a tough job to start with,” said former Wisconsin coach and AD Barry Alvarez. “To get through that, I don’t care who would have been there, it would have been a difficult situation. I just think Kevin’s a grinder.”