Fred Glass leaves behind a foundation rebuilt after collapse
Indiana athletic director Fred Glass arrived in Bloomington after the infractions by former men's head basketball coach Kelvin Sampson left the basketball program and the athletic department in shambles.
Now, Indiana football and women's basketball are reaching historic heights, while men's basketball and nearly every one of the other 21 sports have seen positive gains since the beginning of the Fred Glass Era.
Glass announced his retirement Monday.
When Fred Glass was named the athletic director at Indiana on Oct. 28, 2008, Indiana was nearly finished with a 3-9 football season and was on its way toward a 6-25 basketball season in former head coach Tom Crean’s first year in Bloomington after the Kelvin Sampson infractions. The women’s basketball team would finish in the WNIT, and the baseball team would hover around .500 in the seasons straddling his hiring.
Glass said he remembers the days when baseball players would dress for the basketball team in 2008, and when he took the job, he and the athletic department were “driving full-speed down the interstate with no headlights on” because Glass had no previous athletic directing experience.
Now, 11 years later, after some bumps in the road – Indiana president Michael McRobbie scolding the athletic department for athlete behavior in 2015, Kevin Wilson’s departure in 2016, and others – IU Athletics, on paper, is as good as its been during his tenure. The men’s and women’s basketball teams are both 10-1 – women ranked No. 12, men just outside the top-30 – the football program is preparing for its first Florida bowl game and its third nine-win season, the baseball team is coming off a Big Ten Championship and the swimming and diving program just graduated a world-class swimmer in Lilly King.
The progress, across the board, is what Glass had been aiming for when he took the job in 2008, and it’s difficult to refute the obvious progress that has been made in the last decade-plus. That, combined with the conclusion of IU Athletics’ bicentennial efforts and his growing family, is why Glass told the media in a press release and during a press conference that it was time for him to retire from athletic directing and from Indiana University.
“At the end, I don't know exactly what I'll be doing, but I know something will come up, and it will be great fun,” Glass said about his future in the press conference Monday. “I came here to try to establish a strong foundation for Indiana University Athletics. I really feel like we have done that, and it's time for me to exit stage left.”
Glass had been considering retiring “for a while,” he said.
He wasn’t hoping to announce his retirement at this point in the year, however. In talks with Indiana head football coach Tom Allen, the topic rose organically out of a natural conversation between a school’s athletic director and its head coach, who were negotiating a contract extension for the latter party.
The athletic director couldn’t, in good faith, alert his football coach about his retirement without first notifying Indiana president Michael McRobbie, so he talked to McRobbie about his situation Wednesday, then notified Allen the next day, before Allen’s extension was announced Friday, Dec. 6. He told Indiana men’s basketball head coach Archie Miller during their weekly meeting that Thursday as well.
“When you move on, you move on,” Glass said. “And I've moved on from a lot of cool things.”
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Some of those positions were chief of staff to former Indiana Governor Evan Bayh, president of the Marion County Capital Improvement Board and president of the 2011 Lucas Oil Stadium Super Bowl Bid Committee that brought Super Bowl XLVI to Indiana’s capital in February 2012.
Now, as he moves on from IU, he won’t be part of the department that oversaw the flashes of success over his tenure, from the eighth men’s soccer national championship, to Christian Watford’s buzzer-beating three to beat No. 1 Kentucky in Assembly Hall, to winning inside Nebraska’s Memorial Stadium for the first time since the 1950s. These were all some of his favorite moments, he said.
When he came to Bloomington, Glass was the fifth Indiana athletic director in eight years, so when he accepted the job, he wanted to be at Indiana for a long time.
“I thought to myself, I may not be the best AD ever, and I may not know what I'm doing, but I can be here,” Glass said.
After 11 years, Glass has hired 15 of the 19 current coaches that head Indiana’s 24 sports and significantly increased the finances going toward the football program and in basketball recruiting and upgrading nearly every sport’s facilities.
Now, it will be the responsibility of Glass’ successor to carry on the momentum for all 24 sports and build upon that foundation based on the basic values Glass instilled since he started at Indiana – values he said he hopes will continue to be adhered to when he’s gone, such as following the rules, adhering to student-athlete health, achieving academically and integrate the athletic department into the university.
He won’t be a part of the selection process for his successor, as he’s submitted a confidential counsel to assist McRobbie, who will set parameters for the committee led by by IU Vice President for Government Relations and Economic Engagement Bill Stephan – who led the search that selected Glass in 2008.
“As you all know, every day is a great day to be a Hoosier, but today is a particularly great day for this Hoosier,” Glass said.
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