A change in plans emerged two weeks after athletic director Chris McIntosh said his former position in the University of Wisconsin athletic department will go unfilled for now.
UW last week advertised a job opening for a deputy athletic director, the role McIntosh held before he was promoted in July.
It’s unclear what changed between Sept. 10, when McIntosh told the UW Athletic Board that there was no immediate plan to add to the department’s senior staff, and the Sept. 24 job posting. UW athletics officials didn’t respond to messages asking about the shift.
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The deputy AD position that the Badgers are trying to fill was advertised as overseeing policy development, personnel, budget planning and staff development. Specific roles in leading brand marketing and legal affairs are part of the job, according to the posting.
Applications are being accepted until Oct. 15.
Former athletic director Barry Alvarez appointed McIntosh to replace Walter Dickey as deputy AD in 2017, a move that was seen as preparing McIntosh to take over the top job when Alvarez retired.
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McIntosh was asked in his first Athletic Board meeting as athletic director Sept. 10 whether the deputy position was being filled.
“We’re moving forward for the time being with the leadership staff we have in place,” he said. “Over time we’ll make modifications, but at the moment it’ll be left unfilled.”
Fans enjoy the festivities at the University of Wisconsin alumni pep rally Saturday outside of Soldier Field before the 18th-ranked Badgers battled the 12th-ranked Notre Dame Fighting Irish.
McIntosh has eight associate athletic directors; the count of senior staff members was 11 under Alvarez as recently as the 2019-20 school year. In 2019, Mario Morris departed for Notre Dame and Terry Gawlik became Idaho athletic director. Bruce Van De Velde left the department in 2020, the same year Dickey retired from a special assistant position.
The longest tenured member in an associate AD role is Marija Pientka, who was elevated to the position in 2006.
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