Whats the hardest thing about being athletic director? Is it firing people?
No. It’s the same thing that bothered me when I was golf coach and that’s losing. Losing is still difficult even when you’re not the head coach. But I will say that being golf coach is probably not the best path to take if you want to be an athletic director. What’s the biggest change in college golf since you started in 1973? There are a lot more universities and athletic departments that are serious about fielding a winning team. They have hired better coaches. The pay is better for coaches. All that has conspired to make it a lot more competitive. A lot of golf coaches through the years seemed to be more like bus drivers and chaperones than real coaches. A guy ended up being the van driver because he had to have another job. Coaching was just something that they did on the side. Now virtually everyone is a full-time coach with an assistant. For the first 20 years of my career I didn’t have an assistant and I had to do everything. You had a reputation with your players as being very
