UNLV president hopes to have new athletic director by September

Jim Livengood’s announcement last week to retire as UNLV’s athletic director seemed abrupt, a decision that caught many by surprise.

Replacing him won’t happen nearly as quickly.

UNLV president Neal Smatresk said Tuesday he hopes to have a new AD in place by September as the football and the other fall sports seasons get under way.

“Even if I run a super fast and very aggressive search, getting somebody in place by September would probably be about as hopeful as you could be,” he said.

Smatresk said his most immediate priority is to hire an interim athletic director to take over when Livengood’s retirement takes effect June 30. Livengood, however, will continue to offer his services as a consultant, particularly helping the program with decisions this summer regarding Mountain West matters.

As for the interim position, Smatresk said he doesn’t want whoever fills that role to apply to become the full-time athletic director. He doesn’t want to discourage quality candidates who might think the interim AD has an inside track to the job.

Smatresk also said no outside search firm will be used because promising initial nationwide interest in the position convinced him UNLV could handle a search on its own.

“This is a job that I think people will think is a very good job, a lot of opportunity,” Smatresk said. “So with that said, we think we’ll have a pretty good core. It’ll just be up to us to screen them properly.”

Smatresk said he expects to advertise for the job for about a month beginning in mid June. Candidates will be brought to Las Vegas for on-campus interviews probably in August.

“I’m not opposed to a quick search,” Smatresk said. “It’s just people’s schedules in the summer are a little harder.”

Assembling a search committee that meets over the summer is the biggest challenge.

The committee will make up about 10 members, and will include mostly athletic department personnel, such as coaches and administrators.

Smatresk said that while assembling the committee is especially difficult because of conflicts with summer vacations, the more relaxed schedule removes some of the urgency in getting someone in place.

“Except for football marketing, it’s not like summer’s our most intense time of the year,” he said.

The president said he wants to consider all kinds of applicants, and will instruct committee members to do so as well.

He broke the ideal candidates into four categories — a UNLV graduate and/or someone with Las Vegas ties; someone at a major university who has the ability to make the Rebels “nationally prominent”; an athletic director who has shown promise at a school that might not necessarily carry the name recognition of UNLV; or a business person who would run the job like a company.

Livengood fit a combination of the second and third profiles when he was hired in December 2009, having spent 16 years as athletic director at Arizona. He also was AD at Washington State for six years and at Southern Illinois for two.

Smatresk has reached out to coaches, administrators and donors to get their thoughts on what kind of athletic director UNLV should hire.

He said the comments, not surprisingly, have been highly varied.

“I wish I had this much excitement around some dean searches I have,” Smatresk said. “What that said, I think it’s important to put my ear to the ground and figure out (from) different people what advice they may have. I’m very receptive to it.”

Contact reporter Mark Anderson at manderson@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2914. Follow him on Twitter: @markanderson65.