Orlando Sentinel article on Orsini

[CalallenStang]

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/sports/l ... -headlines

UCF athletic director takes job at SMU

Kyle Hightower | Sentinel Staff Writer
Posted March 23, 2006, 9:48 PM EST

UCF Athletics Director Steve Orsini is expected to be named Southern Methodist University's new athletic director today at a news conference in Dallas, a university source said late Thursday.

Orsini, 49, will replace Jim Copeland, who announced Feb. 2 he would retire as SMU's athletic director on May 31. Copeland had been AD at SMU since 1995, but he decided to retire just weeks before having a kidney removed.

Calls to Orsini's cell phone were not immediately returned Thursday, but he has not been in Orlando since Wednesday.

Sources said that Orsini interviewed with SMU officials earlier this week and that he agreed to become the Mustangs' new AD pending final approval from the SMU search committee. That approval was given Thursday afternoon shortly after Orsini reportedly met with SMU's head football and basketball coaches.

The news comes as somewhat of a surprise considering that as recently as mid-February Orsini said negotiations between he and UCF on a new contract were "progressing."

"I feel fortunate to be at UCF," Orsini said last month. "It's a great opportunity. . . . I feel that more now than ever because I never dreamed I could be part of a university building its first football stadium on campus.

"That's what I mean when I think about the magnitude of what I'm a part of. I'm happy they think I'm doing a good-enough job in the university's athletics pursuits. And I want to continue to be a part of it."

Negotiations had been going since January's Athletic Association meeting when UCF President John Hitt updated the board of directors about putting together a multiyear contract for Orsini.

Orsini, who has been UCF's AD since July 2002, filled the vacancy that occurred when Steve Sloan resigned to become athletic director at UT-Chattanooga. Before taking the SMU job, Orsini had been mentioned as a candidate for several other open athletic director jobs including the one recently filled at Georgia Tech, where he had served as an associate AD.

A small-time school with big school aspirations when Orsini arrived in 2002, UCF has experienced some of its most significant athletic growth in Orsini's short tenure. Known for his financial wizardry, in a little under four years Orsini led UCF out of the Mid-American Conference in football and Atlantic Sun in basketball and oversaw the consolidation of UCF's sports programs into one all-sports inclusive conference in Conference USA.

In addition Orsini was also responsible for the hiring of former National Coach of the Year George O'Leary, who took the Golden Knights to the schools first-ever bowl appearance last season.

And most recently, Orsini has been a driving force in the progression two major on-going facility projects in the form of a new convocation center to house UCF's basketball programs and a 45,000-seat on-campus football stadium.

He will almost certainly be busy when he starts work at SMU. As reported by the Dallas Morning News, over the past month the Mustangs, also a C-USA member, have conducted an investigation into its basketball program about possible NCAA rules violations.

Before coming to UCF Orsini spent three years as a senior associate AD for Georgia Tech. Prior to that he was an associate AD with the U.S. Naval Academy and before that was director of ticket operations and administration for the Dallas Cowboys from 1984-92.

Kyle Hightower can be reached at [email protected].

[abezontar]

Do you think being director of ticket operations in Dallas means he knows how to market to the Dallas population?

[MrMustang1965]

Um...did anyone (blog, Stallion, etc.) predict this hire?

[CalallenStang]

Do you think being director of ticket operations in Dallas means he knows how to market to the Dallas population?

I don't know if being director of ticket ops has anything to do with marketing at all, BUT his connection with the Cowboys might provide us with a way to cross-market the SMU product and the Cowboys at each others' games.

[MrMustang1965]

Do you think being director of ticket operations in Dallas means he knows how to market to the Dallas population?

I don't know if being director of ticket ops has anything to do with marketing at all, BUT his connection with the Cowboys might provide us with a way to cross-market the SMU product and the Cowboys at each others' games.

Jerry Jones will never allow that to happen.

[giacfsp]

Nobody on this board predicted this, but more importantly, everything I've been able to find about this guy makes me cautiously VERY optimistic.

[SMU Football Blog]

Um...did anyone (blog, Stallion, etc.) predict this hire?

I caught wind of it a few hours before the DMN article came out. Not through any source, but dumb luck from reading the report of activity from the blog. Three separate hits from the domain name UCF.edu and a handful of others from Florida, which is odd for my blog. I asked around if Orsini was a candidate, expecting a response that he had in fact applied. I did not expect a hire a couple of hours later.

Again, the search was done almost entirely by Turner.

[me@smu]

Seriously, last I had heard was that the guy from Nothern Illinois was the leader and next thing I know I am blindsided with the Steve O.

[MrMustang1965]

...the search was done almost entirely by Turner.

What was the purpose of having a 'search committee' then?

Hey, HixsontoLeVias...weren't you on this search committee? Care to elaborate on how things went down in hiring the new AD or are you sworn to secrecy?

[PonyPride]

.... Again, the search was done almost entirely by Turner.

Instead of the firm that was hired to seek candidates? What makes you say that?