After over a month of searching, Mississippi State University President Mark Keenum announced Associate Athletic Director Scott Stricklin has been hired as the Director of Athletics. Keenum conducted a national search after Greg Byrne announced in March he had accepted the Athletic Director position at the University of Arizona.
Stricklin said playing in the Southeastern Conference is both a challenge and a blessing for MSU, and he compared it to the battle of David and Goliath, saying that David comes out on top more these days than people realize.
“Mississippi State has gotta be the aggressor,” Stricklin said. “We’ve gotta be innovative. We’ve gotta attack our challenges instead of sit back and wait for them to come to us. If we can do that, we’ll be successful.”
Stricklin is considered a MSU man, having graduated from Mississippi State in 1992. He has a wide variety of experience in collegiate athletics, having served in associate positions at Auburn, Tulane, Baylor, Kentucky and Mississippi State.
Stricklin was the Assistant Director of Athletics at Kentucky for five years before taking his current position at State in June of 2008. Keenum said it will be a smooth transition for Stricklin, who worked closely with Byrne the last two years.
“This will be a seamless transition to an individual who knows and loves Mississippi State and who is highly regarded among his SEC peers, as well as alumni and friends of our university,” Keenum said. “I look forward to working with Scott to give our athletic programs the resources and support necessary to win championships.”
A Jackson, Miss., native, Stricklin enrolled at MSU in 1988, and he began working with the athletic department on day one.
“”I walked into the athletic department my first day as a freshman,” Stricklin said. “They gave me the opportunity to come in everyday and watch, and I learned that I wanted to be involved in athletics.”
Keenum said it was a sign of things to come.
“As a freshman student at Mississippi State University . Scott immediately began working in the athletic department as a student worker. You could say the journey that brought him here began when he was a freshman.”
Stricklin replaces Byrne, who most around the university considered very successful in his two years as A.D. Byrne made the move to let go of Sylvester Croom, the SEC’s first African-American head football coach, and replaced him with Dan Mullen. Byrne also made the tough decision to part ways with the SEC’s all-time winningest baseball coach, Ron Polk, and replace him with one of his former players – John Cohen.
Stricklin said he knows he has big shoes to fill, but said the fans will makes it a fun job for him.
We’ve accomplished some pretty remarkable things in the last two years,” he said. “The passion around this university that our people have is special. Not every school has that passion. We may not have as many people as others in that fanbase, but we have passion.”
While Keenum had to replace the previous Athletic Director after only two years, he said he is happy knowing he now has someone who truly loves Mississippi State.
“He’s a Bulldog,” Keenum said. “He truly bleeds maroon and white. He wants to be here. He has the passion and the desire to provide very strong and capable leadership for this university. It will be a seamless transition.”
However, Keenum said being a Bulldog is not the only upside to Stricklin.
“I’m convinced that Scott Stricklin has the energy, the enthusiasm and the vision to lead this athletic department,” Keenum said.