{"id":12664,"date":"2025-07-15T22:12:04","date_gmt":"2025-07-15T22:12:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/12664\/"},"modified":"2025-07-15T22:12:04","modified_gmt":"2025-07-15T22:12:04","slug":"is-changing-of-the-guard-coming-for-athletic-director-seats-in-college-sports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/12664\/","title":{"rendered":"Is changing of the guard coming for athletic director seats in college sports?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The news dropped last week like an unlit firework left over from the Fourth of July — after 27 years, Oklahoma AD Joe Castiglione would retire<\/a> at the end of the next year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love being able to serve the University of Oklahoma in so many ways,\u201d Castiglione said from the dais last week. \u201c… However, from time to time, one does take a moment to ponder one\u2019s path, one\u2019s future. It\u2019s a decision-making kind of rubric: When is the right time? When is the right time to pass the baton? When is the best time to make an announcement like this? Not sure it\u2019s ever perfect or predictable, but they always say, you\u2019ll know.\u201d<\/p>\n

That Castiglione\u2019s career is coming to an end isn\u2019t a surprise. He\u2019s 66, has spent nearly three decades guiding the athletic department in Norman and is one of the most well-respected and well-liked people in the business. Considering everything happening in college sports these days, stepping away into retirement doesn\u2019t sound so bad. <\/p>\n

More broadly, Castiglione\u2019s retirement represents another bullet point in the ongoing changing of the guard in AD roles across the country.<\/p>\n

North Carolina announced longtime AD Bubba Cunningham would step down<\/a> at the end of next year. Legendary Ohio State AD Gene Smith has only been out of his job for around a year. Notre Dame\u2019s Jack Swarbrick, too, isn\u2019t long gone from his post in South Bend.<\/p>\n

To be fair, we\u2019ve seen these shifts plenty in other facets of college sports.<\/p>\n

Coaches were the first movers on this. Roy Williams, Jim Boeheim and Mike Krzyzewski are off enjoying retirement, as are Nick Saban, Mack Brown and Frank Beamer.<\/p>\n

But as pressures mount on ADs to find as much revenue as possible thanks to the new realities of college sports, hot seat timelines are speeding up, and plenty who\u2019ve made lengthy careers are heading for the exit.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t to say they\u2019re being chased out. Far from it in the case of someone like Castiglione or Cunningham. <\/p>\n

Still, perhaps Bob Dylan was on to something — the times, they are a changin\u2019. It sure feels like it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The news dropped last week like an unlit firework left over from the Fourth of July — after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12665,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68],"tags":[402,4044,1607,398,400,401,99],"class_list":["post-12664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-basketball","tag-basketball","tag-college-basketball","tag-college-football","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-basketball","tag-ncaabasketball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12664"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12664\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}