What Brian Santiago said about becoming BYU’s new athletic director

It’s a new era at BYU.

Brian Santiago will succeed Tom Holmoe as the school’s director of athletics, the school announced Tuesday evening.

On Wednesday, Santiago was officially introduced by BYU at a press conference.

Special Collector's Issue: "1984: The Year BYU was Second to None"

Get an inclusive look inside BYU Football's 1984 National Championship season.

Buy Now

Santiago has worked at BYU in various capacities since 1997. He became a senior associate athletic director in 2008 and was then appointed as Holmoe’s deputy athletic director in 2017, a role in which he served until being selected as Holmoe’s successor.

How Brian Santiago opened his press conference

“These are exciting times. It’s been overwhelming the past 24 hours to see how much people around the world care about BYU athletics. ... Cougar Nation, let’s go,” Santiago said during Wednesday’s news conference. “There’s never been a better time to be a part of BYU athletics and this university than right now.

“Our athletic department is fully aligned with the mission of the university and the mission of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We‘re unashamed. It’s who we are, and we‘re going to stand with confidence in that.

What Brian Santiago said about BYU athletics

“I’m humbled to stand on the shoulders of great leaders and mentors that have helped prepare me for this day,” Santiago said. “Over the last 20 years, I’ve had the privilege of working alongside Tom Holmoe, one of the best human beings and athletic directors in the business.

“Tom, I’m grateful for your mentorship and friendship. You always made sure we were in this together, and working with you made me a better person. You prepared me for this day, and I’m committed to carrying forward the legacy of greatness. We dreamed together of one day joining a conference, and joining the Big 12 has strengthened our athletic department and our university.

“We are blessed at BYU to have world class coaches and student athletes that bring us all so much joy. Sitting here and looking out at our coaches now, I’m inspired by what they’ve accomplished and what we‘re going to accomplish together. All I’ve ever wanted to do is help you fly, on the field and in life. Every one of us in the athletic department, every single person in the athletic department, are united in that purpose. That’s why we come to work every day, to help the student athletes and our coaches fly. We believe in you, and we will enthusiastically walk the path with you in this relentless pursuit of excellence.

“We‘re fortunate to have an incredible amount of positive momentum in the athletic department. I’m passionate — and people know that I’m passionate — about continuing the excellence and protecting the integrity of this great university. The athletic department has over 100 years of history. We‘ve watched some of the greatest players and coaches in the history of sport win at the highest level, doing it the right way. We were born to win. ... The future is bright."

1 of 27

2 of 27

3 of 27

4 of 27

5 of 27

6 of 27

7 of 27

8 of 27

9 of 27

10 of 27

11 of 27

12 of 27

13 of 27

14 of 27

15 of 27

16 of 27

17 of 27

18 of 27

19 of 27

20 of 27

21 of 27

22 of 27

23 of 27

24 of 27

25 of 27

26 of 27

27 of 27

What university president Shane Reese said about BYU’s new AD

“As we visited with Brian, some of the things that we already knew about (him) were the depth of his commitment to the university, the focus that he has on the relationships with the student athletes and his attention to details, and that is a tremendous set of qualifications. We also found in Brian someone who was humble, someone who was willing to hear feedback and willing to adapt and adjust to a changing landscape,” Reese said.

He continued, “Candidly, I think all of us, and I mean all of us as in the entire NCAA landscape, are going to be learning lots of new lessons as the House settlement comes out. There is so much about today’s college athletics that doesn’t resemble our father’s college athletics, so we‘re going to have a lot of lessons to learn, and (Santiago’s) willingness and humility to learn those lessons also came out through that process.”

Brian Santiago on his vision for the future

“We‘re going to be excellent. We‘re going to be passionate about being nationally relevant. In this world of college athletics, it’s imperative that we chase greatness. We want to be great. We want to compete at the highest level,” Santiago said. “It would be a disservice to some of the greatest athletes and coaches in the history of sport to be OK with mediocrity. We‘re going to be passionate about excellence. What rings through our minds is to do it the right way and protect the integrity of this great place. That’s how we‘re going do it. That’s going to be the charge, and we‘re gonna walk the path together.”

He continued, “I think that the one thing that I’ll do is make sure we protect the great things that we‘ve established together. When I say we, I don’t just mean Tom and me. All these coaches in the room, every member of our athletic department, we‘re united in this, and we‘ve established some great positive momentum, maybe the best momentum that we‘ve ever had in sports at BYU. It’s important for us to protect that, especially. We have a department filled with excellence. We have administrators, we have coaches, we have support staff. Everybody’s all in.”

Brian Santiago on working with and learning from Tom Holmoe

“I loved coming to work every day with him. Tom and I have a lot of similarities, but we‘re also unique in our own approach. One of the things that I always loved about Tom is that I always felt empowered, I always felt like I had a voice. We both are passionate about and love the same things,” Santiago said.

“President (Reese) just talked about the ever-changing landscape of college athletics, and one of the things that I’m really grateful for is, the last three or four years, Tom’s really empowered me where I’ve taken a deep dive into the world of NIL and (revenue sharing) in the trenches with our coaches, with our student athletes, and working alongside some of our important stakeholders that have helped us along the way, to kind of have some context there that is really going to help us as we jump into this new era.”

Brian Santiago on what he wants BYU fans to know about him

“I’m obviously a super passionate person, it’s something that’s just in my blood. I feel deeply for this place,” Santiago said Wednesday. “At times people see that passion and intensity, but the part of me that they don’t see is the deep love I have for people, the compassion I have for people, and that everything I do, I just want to help everybody around me be better.”

Santiago continued, “I hope people will see that not only is there a soft and a sensitive side to me and a compassionate side, but I’m just amazed by the talent of all these young people and just by the incredible people around the world. I just love to see other people and help them make people better, make people feel loved, and make people feel that they have a purpose on this planet earth. It’s important to me to empower those around me. Another thing that’s super important to me is I want to empower women. It’s super important in this day and age of college athletics that we empower women, and I have one of the strongest women in the world that’s by my side, and I just want to make sure that they know how important they are in this whole scheme of college athletics.

“I just want people to see my personal side, because I think people have seen my competitive side — it’s real and I’m not going to back away from it. But I hope people can see my personal side and I think that’s an important part of who I am as a human being.

Brian Santiago on his love for student-athletes at BYU and the school’s mission

“The vision is for us to be great, to win at the highest level and do it in a way that’s going to bring positive light to this university to this church. This is way bigger than sport. But if we‘re not relevant, nobody cares who we are,” Santiago said. “And so our vision is all of us together, every person in the athletic department, every coach, every person, every day, is going to come with one goal in mind, and that’s to help these student athletes fly.”

He added, “There’s never been a better time for these student athletes to come to BYU. This is one of the great institutions in the world, and it’s not by chance that it continues to rise, and it’s going to continue to rise.

“We had a graduation banquet the other night, and we had five student athletes from five different sports stand up and speak. I didn’t hear too many of them talking about how many wins they had. We had people on that stand that had competed on the highest level, competed on the international level. But they were talking about their experience here, their experience of these coaches loving them, the experience of when they went through adversity and coaches walking the path with them, their experience of being triumphant at the end. That’s what we‘re after. We‘re after preparing them to go out into the world and change the world. That’s what we‘re going to do.”