No trumpets or fanfare accompanied the announcement of Boston University Athletic Director Gary Strickler’s retirement Monday. There was just a press release that popped up at the top of the BU athletics website.
That’s probably just how he wanted it.
After 15 years of guiding the BU Department of Athletics to uncharted levels of success, Strickler will step down on July 1. And as the department’s most famous face said Monday, the selfless Strickler will leave with the same attitude he’s had the whole time – thinking about others first.
“I don’t think you could have a better director of athletics for the coaches,” said BU hockey coach and Executive Director of Athletics Jack Parker. “He thought his job was just to do as much as he could to help the coaches win. I think that’s a guy without ego, a guy that was just worried about making other people feel comfortable on their jobs.”
In doing so, Strickler has certainly been comfortable with his own job. And sitting in his office Monday – as if it were any other day – he certainly seemed comfortable with his decision.
“It’s just that I’ve been doing this for a long time, and I kinda feel like it’s time for me to wind down a career,” Strickler said. “Sixteen years in this department, 35 years at Boston University – it kind of feels like enough for a while.”
For an athletic department that has been gaining attention recently even for things other than a men’s basketball team that has won 23 of its last 24 games, the Terriers lose Strickler at a somewhat unlikely time. Parker said there will be “big shoes to fill,” and though he’d probably rather just fade into the background, Strickler will be sticking around for an extra year as a consultant, helping whoever is hired to fill those shoes.
The announcement may seem sudden with the pending excitement of Agganis Arena’s opening next January and numerous other new facilities and programs on the rise. But the way the department is going, there’s no good time to leave, Strickler said.
“There’s a lot of good things happening here,” Strickler said. “If you stayed around for all the good things that were coming up next, you’d never get to retire.”
Good things have been happening since Strickler moved into his office on Babcock Street after spending nearly 20 years working for the School of Management.
In 1995, the women’s soccer team made the jump from club status to Division I, and has gone 97-53-8 since, under one coach (Nancy Feldman). Strickler hired Margaret McKeon to coach women’s basketball in 1999, and the Terriers are working on their third straight winning season, to go with the program’s first-ever NCAA Tournament appearance last spring.
The women’s lacrosse team, under third-year coach Liza Shoemaker, will start this season ranked No. 12 nationally. And a softball team playing on a three-year old grass field has won two straight conference championships under fourth-year coach Amy Hayes.
“Most of those coaches he had a lot to do with bringing them here. He was stuck with me, but he hired everybody else, so I think he’s done a terrific job that way,” Parker said. “I think one of his big legacies is what a great job he did for women’s athletics in general.”
But the men’s teams have been just as successful. The success of the hockey team over the years has been well chronicled, but in bringing Wolff to “The Roof,” – and keeping him there – Strickler helped establish a program that is turning heads everywhere.
What it all adds up to is the last two America East Commissioner’s Cups for the best all-around department in the conference.
“I think the best thing that’s happened for me and this department in the 16 years I’ve been here is that every team we have has had some improvements and some growth and some new direction that they didn’t have before,” Strickler said. “I think every coach has been given an opportunity in the environment we’ve created to be more successful and they have been.
“But I don’t take credit for that,” he added. “I think I could have done more to get in the way than make it work.”
It hasn’t been all roses for the whole 15 years, however. Strickler was a part of the difficult decision to cut the football program in 1997.
“I think the hardest decision was to be involved in the dropping of football because there were so many fine people – coaches and athletes – that were affected by it,” Strickler said. “It was something that I really very much regretted having to do, but I have to also quickly add that I never thought it was the wrong decision.”
Still, he leaves the department at the top of the conference – big shoes to fill, yes, but shoes in remarkably good shape in the age of scandal in college sports. There is hope for BU to move up to a more competitive conference – Strickler mentioned the Atlantic 10 as a possibility – but either way, these are exciting times on West Campus.
Neither Parker nor Strickler had any ideas for a possible replacement, and Strickler said he wanted nothing to do with the search – hand-picking a successor is not his style.
“I don’t think I would give advice to somebody – let them find out for themselves, as I had to,” Strickler said, though he did offer a bit. “Go to as many events as you can, be as visibly supportive of the teams as you can, because they deserve it, they want it, they need it – they appreciate it when you do that.”
Parker was named executive director of athletics in 2002, a decision that Parker said “could have been very, very difficult,” but “he was real comfortable with that. I think that’s another example of being devoid of ego.”
Parker said the search for a replacement will start soon.
“We don’t want me in charge of this department by myself for too long,” he said, denying that he would have any interest in the job.
Regardless of who steps into Strickler’s office in July, the BU athletic department will be reaping the benefits of its former leader years from now.
“I see the teams getting continually better,” Strickler said. “I think that’s an upward progression that’s just never gonna stop.”
He won’t admit it, but it’s one that he had a big hand in starting.