WSU ushers in 'new era,' introduces AD Jon Haarlow

Apr. 21—PULLMAN — Washington State University's newly minted vice president and athletic director Jon Haarlow does not recall a specific moment in which he ascended from interim AD to the full-time post.

"I was on the road, and it wasn't exactly like this type of moment. It was kind of like a build-up conversation," said Haarlow in an interview with the Tribune following his introductory news conference in the Alger Family Club Room of Gesa Field on Monday. "And so it all happened so fast, and we were right in the middle of meetings and so we just kept rolling. I'm not sure it really totally settled in until I was up there on the stage earlier, but I'm grateful for the opportunity."

That idea "to just keep rolling," was perhaps the most pivotal ingredient that allowed Haarlow to shed the interim tag, which he held for five months following the dismissal of his predecessor and former interim turned full-time AD Anne McCoy.

WSU president Elizabeth "Betsy" Cantwell said she made the call in elevating Haarlow.

"He performed incredibly well in the role as interim and I was looking for specific things," Cantwell said during the news conference. "One is the ability to partner with me, and that's crucial as we go into this coming year."

Cantwell also pointed to Haarlow's hiring of football coach Kirby Moore following the abrupt departure of the previous coach, Jimmy Rogers, after one year and the hiring of women's soccer coach Chris Citowicki as contributing factors as well.

Rather than use a traditional search firm, Cantwell said she applied "non-traditional due diligence," in which she spoke with fellow university presidents, athletic directors and other relevant individuals about what the next chapter of college athletics looks like in order to inform her search for WSU's full-time AD.

Advertisement

"This is such a change moment that for me," Cantwell said, "the traditional search process wasn't necessarily going to get us someone who had that entrepreneurial spirit and was able to really partner up with me."

Haarlow enters the role with Pac-12 holdovers WSU and Oregon State on the precipice of the new Pac-12 Conference, which will see six new football-sponsoring schools and Gonzaga join the conference on July 1.

WSU's new Pac-12 colleagues like Boise State, Texas State and San Diego State are smaller than legacy Pac-12 schools USC, UCLA and Oregon, meaning that WSU has and will take home a smaller media rights share.

That deficit, coupled with the increasing necessity to competitively compensate student-athletes through revenue sharing and name, image and likeness deals — lest they transfer to other schools that can pay them — means that WSU must identify alternative funding sources to best position itself for present and future success in a climate where the next round of conference realignment is inevitable and imminent.

Haarlow declined to share the football or basketball programs' exact revenue sharing and NIL figures, though he said that he believes WSU is "in the top quarter of the (Pac-12)" for football.