BYU’s new athletic director, Brian Santiago, has a big problem right out of the chute.
Oh, there are all those challenges of implementing revenue sharing mandated by the NCAA and Big 12.
And there are challenges with managing NIL collectives and boosters.
He’s got to transition with his boss, retiring Tom Holmoe. He’ll see an increase in interactions with middle university administrators and university president Shane Reese. Then there are new Big 12 council commitments and upcoming league committee assignments.
He’s got some decisions to make on leadership of some sports programs and facility improvements to review. He’ll have the never-ending future scheduling contracts for football and basketball to manage, and the eternal quest to hit up donors for contributions.
“When you really need to get things done, you need to turn to a person you know will cut through everything and get it done. Santiago was that guy. So was Pete (Witbeck). People didn’t always get along with them, and they were the guys who had to tell people no a lot. But you need them. Every AD needs them.”
— former BYU AD Val Hale on new BYU AD Brian Santiago
Oh, and when BYUtv calls to fill airtime, he’ll need to carve out the time. And there’s always answering letters and emails from BYU fans who want better tickets, parking passes, and responding to complaints over more wins and titles.
But those are overshadowed by another issue.
Brian Santiago needs to find him a Brian Santiago.
And he’s got to do it as fast as possible.
He needs a doer. A chaser.
He must appoint a tireless detail person who simply gets things done. He needs a task-a-teer.
He needs a guy who is in the regular foursome with billionaire Ryan Smith and Danny Ainge.
He needs a guy who can tell people “no” when the answer “no” is needed. A primary job of an athletic director is to provide “no” answers, but that job can be delegated to insulate the AD.
He needs what Rondo Fehlberg once said of assistant athletic director Pete Witbeck, “He’s the guy who wears the black hat.”
Here’s what Santiago needs in a dogged dog:
He’s got to have a person by his side who‘s as devoted as a golden retriever, excited as a salivating Labrador retriever, focused and driven as a border collie, and fearless in attack as a rottweiler.
In noncanine terms, he needs a personality, an entity that will run full speed through a wall when asked. A person who can absorb some bruises and chase down a detail like it was a marble-sized diamond.
There have been just two of these entities the past 50 years in BYU’s storied athletic department: the late Witbeck and Santiago.
That’s it.
For Stan Watts and Glen Tuckett in the 1970s through the ’90s, it was Witbeck. For Fehlberg, Val Hale and Tom Holmoe, it was Witbeck and then Santiago.
When Hall of Fame QB Steve Young was inducted into the College Academic Hall of Fame in Cleveland, he told Hale he couldn’t make the ceremonies flying commercial and he asked if there was any way Hale could find him a private jet.
Hale didn’t have time to be on the phone for four or five hours to find a private jet, so he asked Santiago to find one. On short notice, Santiago quickly found Young a ride to Cleveland and back.
“When you really need to get things done, you need to turn to a person you know will cut through everything and get it done,” said Hale. “Santiago was that guy. So was Pete. People didn’t always get along with them, and they were the guys who had to tell people ‘no’ a lot. But you need them. Every AD needs them.”
“What can’t that guy do? I mean, the guy just works. He is a tireless worker. He puts his heart and soul into everything.”
— former BYU basketball coach Dave Rose on Brian Santiago
At most schools, BYU included, there are levels of bureaucracy to battle in order to get things done. For instance, to raise money for a project, the fundraising must be approved by Latter-day Saints Philanthropies. It is a governing office that coordinates the “ask” to donors so half a dozen people aren’t hitting up the same people for money.
There is also an office of campus planning and development that is in charge of the physical properties and coordinates construction, approves plans and places new facilities within the campus grid to adhere to electrical, plumbing, traffic and land requirements.
Then there’s the administration, the university council and the governing board of trustees.
All of these groups have a say in sports facility growth.
When the Marriott Center Annex was planned and finally completed in 2017, the $30 million project began with two $1.5 million contributions from the late Rex Maughan and his wife Ruth. That got the ball rolling and put pressure on the system for approvals and progress. The bird-dog for the athletic department to attack the system, to report, coordinate and be a liaison between Holmoe and all the entities, was Santiago.
Both Santiago and assistant athletic director Chad Lewis have been tasked over the years with contacting donors, bringing them to administrators, and discussing plans and needs that are approved. Lewis has been a key liaison with donors to Dave Rose, Mark Pope and now Kevin Young, and his role cannot be understated.
Nothing gets done at BYU unless the idea reaches a “priority project” level. Sometimes fighting to get that label is a battle.
Pope was the first to face the challenge of NIL, and he told Holmoe and his direct supervisor, Santiago, that he needed $2 million to make it work. “Boy, has that changed now,” said Dave Rose. “But it was Brian’s job to go and make that happen.”
Same with the creation and implementation of the very lucrative Marriott Center Courtside Cougar donors, an army of donors who wanted access, premium seating and perks. Santiago was tasked with putting it all together.
“He can get things done,” said Rose, who first worked with Santiago when head coach Steve Cleveland asked him to be an assistant and then hired Santiago to be the director of basketball operations in 1997.
Rose and Santiago were roommates on BYU basketball road trips. He saw firsthand what Santiago did with logistics, transportation and accommodations. He got to know Santiago extremely well and when he became head coach, Santiago was elevated to an assistant athletic director.
“He works hard. I remember calling him in the middle of the night, like 3 a.m., and he was in the office working,” said Rose.
“He was really a great support to me. I could count on him.”
When the annex was proposed, Rose and Holmoe traveled the country to view some of the best facilities. They gleaned ideas from many facilities at the top programs nationally. When they came back and began designs, they had a lot of constraints to deal with.
“Brian was the one who met with architects, the city building code folks, and with people at BYU,” Rose said. “He’d come back and report on what they wanted cut out of the plans.
“For instance, we wanted two full courts so the men and women could use them at the same time. But there wasn’t room for that at the site we chose. It was Brian’s job to be the go-between and get things moving and done.
“Santiago met with them every Wednesday, and he’d come visit me in my office and tell me what changes campus planning wanted.”
Establishing the Courtside Cougars was put to Santiago to do, and he worked with President Cecil Samuelson and President Kevin Worthen. That priority seating has brought in hundreds of thousands of dollars annually.
“He set it up to make the ask,” said Rose. “He was involved in so many things, the NCAA Volleyball Selection Committee, and tried to get around and watch teams. It was amazing to me to watch Brian, whom I’d worked with closely in basketball operations 20 years earlier, to then be taking care of $30 million projects.”
Rose remains amazed. “What can’t that guy do? I mean, the guy just works. He is a tireless worker. He puts his heart and soul into everything.”
Rose said, “When Santiago was over basketball under Holmoe, he did everything he could to get what we needed to be successful. He was 100% behind Pope to see that he got what he needed. You see now what he did to help Kevin Young get hired when Pope left for Kentucky; get him what he needed, and we all see where that program is now.”
In the days to come, as Holmoe’s tenure ends and a new face takes over the office space, there remains a static fact of BYU’s future success for Santiago.
“This is not a one-man operation,” Reese told reporters after the formal announcement of Santiago as AD. “It’s gonna require assembling a team. I think in the coming days and weeks we’re going to see that team start to develop.”
He needs to clone himself.
