Wright State picks four finalists in AD hunt
School's associate AD is still in the mix; the other three candidates all have worked, played or studied at Indiana.
Saturday, May 03, 2008
FAIRBORN — One of the final four candidates for the Wright State athletic director's job works in the office next to Mike Cusack, the current AD who is retiring next month.
Another played basketball at Indiana under Bob Knight.
Extras
Get latest headlines via RSS feedsA third was once the sports information director at Miami University and the fourth works at George Mason in Fairfax, Va., a school about the same age as Wright State.
WSU vice president of student affairs Dr. Dan Abrahamowicz released the names Friday, May 2, and expects to interview the finalists by the end of the month.
The candidates:
Bob Grant, WSU associate AD who holds two degrees from the school, an MBA in marketing and a bachelor of science in business administration. He has been associated with the school — mostly in the athletics department — almost exclusively since he was an undergrad.
Stephen Downing, senior associate director of athletics at Texas Tech since 2001. Before obtaining his current position, Downing worked nearly 25 years as an associate AD at Indiana, where he was Big Ten Player of the Year in 1973. He was a member of the 1974 Boston Celtics NBA championship team.
Brian Teter, an Illinois State grad, was Miami SID from 1991-94 and has worked at Illinois State, Cincinnati and Indiana. He also was an assistant commissioner of the Great Midwest Conference and an associate commissioner of Conference USA. He was associate AD at Cincinnati before taking his current job as AD at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi.
Kevin McNamee is deputy associate AD at George Mason, where he has worked since 1995. Prior to that, he was at St. Bonaventure, not only as an administrator, but from 1978-92 as the school's swimming coach. He graduated from St. Bonaventure and has a master's degree in coaching and human performance from Indiana.
"We want someone who will make a commitment to Wright State and our student-athletes," Abrahamowicz said. "We'd like to fill the Nutter Center, win the all-sports trophy and graduate all our athletes, but we're not saying win at all costs."
The new athletic director will be only the third in the school's history, following Don Mohr and Cusack.
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2157 or mkatz@DaytonDailyNews.com.
