SFU has narrowed down the list of candidates for the athletic director to a “medium list”, according to Tim Rahilly, associate vice president of students.
“We ended up with quite a large pool of applicants,” he said. “The selection committee reviewed all of those applications and narrowed that down to about 10 people who we think have the highest potential for the position.”
Candidates in this phase will be interviewed over Skype. From the medium list, SFU will narrow the list of candidates down further into a shortlist.
“We will bring those people on campus later in September to come meet us on campus, meet some important stakeholders, and give them an opportunity to check us out.”
SFU Athletics has been without an athletic director since Milt Richards, who had held the position since 2011, resigned in July. Richards was the first American athletic director at SFU.
SFU has had only five athletic directors in its 50 year history. Lorne Davies ran the program from its inception for thirty years, before retiring in 1995. Mike Dinning, who previously held the position at York University, became the school’s second athletic director, holding the position until 2001.
Wilf Wedmann, a former Clan track star, Olympian, and Rhodes scholar, succeeded Dinning, running the program until his retirement in 2007. David Murphy, the school’s fourth athletic director, brought SFU into the NCAA.
This time around, Rahilly said that they had received applications from a wide spectrum of people in the collegiate athletic community.
“[The search] included people who are currently sitting as athletic directors in NCAA schools that would include people who are associate directors in NCAA schools, Canadians working in the US, people who have previously worked in NCAA schools who are in Canada. It also includes people who are in the Canadian system in the CIS.
“We’re aiming to have an offer to the preferred candidate at the end of September or early October,” he continued. “In terms of actually having someone in the position, that’s going to depend very much on the circumstance of that individual, whether or not they’re local, or from parts unknown, and their personal circumstances in terms of their ability to move quickly.”
For now, however, the department still has to run, even without an athletic director hired. Peg Johnsen is listed as the interim director, handling day-to-day operations.
“It has to be business as usual, we’ve got a department to run,” said Rahilly. “We’ve got people who are stepping up to make sure things are operational.”
