Sun Sentinel Broward Edition

O’Leary to be UCF interim AD

- By Shannon Green Staff writer

George O’Leary said he loves an adventure. Come July 11, he’ll embark on the rare journey, juggling the duties of leading UCF’s athletic department and football program.

The school formally introduced O’Leary as its interim athletic director before a small crowd of administra­tors and coaches at CFE Arena Tuesday. He replaces departing athletic director Todd Stansbury, who recently accepted the same position at Oregon State.

“There’s not much I haven’t seen in all sports,” O’Leary said. “I thought it would be a great challenge. I’m looking forward to sitting down and putting my teeth into a lot of the stuff that we have going on right now, the projects.”

O’Leary isn’t the first football coach to take on a leadership role in administra­tion. Barry Alvarez of Wisconsin and Tom Osborne of Nebraska both had successful coaching careers before changing course and serving as athletic directors. Both also served as interim head coaches during their tenures as athletic directors. One of O’Leary’s predecesso­rs, Gene McDowell, also served in dual roles as coach and athletic director at UCF from 1985-1992.

O’Leary hasn’t had time to outline a specific vision as interim athletic director yet and while he said there isn’t much “to fix” at UCF, he isn’t opposed to making changes where he sees fit.

But the biggest questions aside from the football coach’s time management skills and budget choices are if this interim role will morph into a permanent position and what kind of impact that could have on O’Leary’s immediate plans to coach.

There has been speculatio­n since last year that O’Leary would retire before his contract ends in 2017.

“I’ve always said that I’ll get out of coaching when I feel that I’m not efficient enough and it’ll be the same thing probably this year. If I feel that we’re efficient, we’ll continue but, again, I’m the head football coach, athletic director and I will make sure that both jobs are done extremely well,” O’Leary said when asked about retirement. “If I feel I’m inefficien­t in any of those areas then I’ll react to it.

O’Leary, 68, will serve as the interim athletic director until the end of 2015. UCF leaders are expected to make a long-term decision about the athletic director position at that time.

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