When Bruce Van De Velde was hired less than 54 weeks ago as Utah State athletic director replacing Chuck Bell, avid Aggie watchers considered it a good move, but many said he was so good, he'd be in Logan three years or less.
Van De Velde is leaving Sooner than later.Van De Velde confirmed to the Deseret News by phone at mid-afternoon Friday that he has indeed accepted a position with his former boss at a new school, Oklahoma, where he will be Sooner senior associate athletic director to Joe Castiglione, beginning Aug. 1. His USU resignation becomes effective July 28.
The move was to have been announced by the Sooners on Monday, but USU put out an official news release late Friday affirming the move.
Castiglione had hired Van De Velde to Missouri from Kansas State and left Mizzou only months before Van De Velde accepted USU's position. His official hiring date was June 26, 1998. He began Aggie duties July 20, 1998.
"It is just a great opportunity that I didn't feel at this time in my career that I could pass up," said Van De Velde, 43, who is leaving his first-ever head AD position. "I'm going to love it."
The word "senior" in his new title is important. It means Van De Velde is in charge of other associate ADs and will be the top decision-making source when Castiglione is unavailable; he will be No. 1A in the department.
Van De Velde said he did not know what USU will do to replace him or whether it will go with an interim AD, as it did for nearly a year with business professor Mike Parent running the show prior to hiring Chuck Bell, or make a permanent hire, as the Aggies did when Bell left.
USU president George Emert said in a prepared USU statement that a search will begin immediately, and the first step will be to review the 59 applications gathered a year ago. Some of those applicants included Val Hale, who was recently named athletic director at BYU, and Marc Amicone, an assistant AD at the University of Utah.
Van De Velde will be involved "in every administration part of the program with an emphasis on external affairs," Van De Velde said. External affairs, he said, includes development, marketing, radio and television, Sooner sports licensing and facility projects.
The new position reunites Van De Velde not only with Castiglione but with football coach Bob Stoops, who was Kansas State University defensive coordinator while Van De Velde was director of football operations for the Wildcats.
"It was a very difficult situation," Van De Velde said of the decision he and wife Debbie made to leave USU so quickly. "The relationships (with Castiglione and Stoops) played a big role.
"The compensation is phenomenal," he said. Van De Velde hired on at USU for $93,000 a year. Asked if the Oklahoma job doubled that, he said it did not, "but it is significant."
Being close to family is his third reason for making the move, Van De Velde said. Debbie is from Kansas. He grew up in northern Illinois and graduated in 1981 from Iowa State University and served as an assistant football coach at Iowa State, Nebraska Wesleyan and Dana College before getting into administration and athletic marketing and fund-raising.
Van De Velde said the recent snub of Utah State by the Western Athletic Conference, which recently admitted Nevada of the Big West Conference, also figured in his decision. "It played a role. I don't know if it was the determining role," he said.
"It was more the great opportunity. The tough thing is in this business, you can't pick your spots. You can't determine where you live," he said, mentioning again that he couldn't let such a job pass him by.
Also, the chance to be back in the Big 12 Conference didn't go unnoticed by Van De Velde, who noted Oklahoma's six national football championships. "It's a pretty unique place," he said.
Some sources have hinted that Van De Velde did not enjoy as much support from Emert as his predecessor, Chuck Bell, now at San Jose State, had gotten. Van De Velde denied that. "That's not true. I had almost weekly contact with President Emert. He is a good friend and supporter of the athletic department," he said.
Emert said Van De Velde "is a great young man with great promise for the future in his profession."
Van De Velde said Castiglione made the move to Oklahoma from Missouri "because they came and got him," to help revive a once-more-powerful athletic department.
Castiglione tried several times to lure Van De Velde from USU, finally making the current successful offer in early June. "The package was different," Van De Velde said about what changed his mind this time.
Van De Velde said USU made progress in many ways during his year on the job.
Among accomplishments he's most proud of are fiscal balance, new facilities, new contracts with some major sponsors, the hiring of basketball coach Stew Morrill and former Penn State volleyball coach Tom Peterson, who won an NCAA championship, and an improved composite athletes' grade-point average to 3.0.
"Those are the things that jump out at me," Van De Velde said, adding one other: "And we've mended fences on campus," he said. Injured feelings of many in Logan were one thing that helped chase Bell out of state and were a priority fix for Van De Velde.
"I am confident the progress and initiatives that have been implemented will continue to be fulfilled," he said in a prepared USU statement.
During Van De Velde's tenure, USU athletics balanced its budget through belt-tightening and marketing/donations, completed the first phase of Romney Stadium renovation including construction of 1,800 new seats and a $650,000 scoreboard project and sound system. It also is in the late stages of funding and constructing the $4.5 million Stan Laub Training Center.
USU also negotiated three-year contracts with Nike for shoes and apparel, with Marriott Corporation for concessions and with KSL-TV and Sports West Network to televise USU football, basketball and gymnastics. The TV deal more than doubles USU's TV revenue and is the school's first long-term TV commitment.