Long hired as Pittsburgh's new AD

PITTSBURGH (AP) -- Jeff Long wasn't well-known before becoming Pittsburgh's athletic director on Friday. That doesn't mean some recognizable faces weren't partly responsible for his hiring.

If it weren't for Steve Spurrier, Bo Schembechler and Dan Rooney, Long might not be inheriting an athletic department that is enjoying considerable success but faces an uncertain future.

"Jeff Long is a real star," Pitt chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg said of the former Oklahoma senior associate athletic director. "He's done about everything an athletic professional can do. He's a man of principle and ambition."

Long, 44, is well-traveled, holding administrative or football coaching jobs at Miami (Ohio), Duke, Rice, North Carolina State, Virginia Tech and Michigan. He also was the athletic director for two years at Eastern Kentucky, only to return to an assistant AD's role at Oklahoma in January 2001.

"If I wanted to be an athletic director at the highest level, I knew I needed to do that," Long said.

Now he gets that chance at Pittsburgh, which is coming off a Top 10 season in men's basketball and a Top 20 season in football but may soon be searching for a new conference affiliation. If Miami and two other Big East schools leave to join the Atlantic Coast Conference, possibly within weeks, the Big East may not survive.

Of course, Long is familiar with adapting to change. As a football assistant, he wasn't retained when Steve Spurrier was hired as Duke's coach. That led to a graduate assistant's job under Schembechler at Michigan -- a move that persuaded him to abandon coaching and become an administrator.

When Pitt advertised for an athletic director after Steve Pederson left to take the same job at Nebraska, Steelers director of football operations Kevin Colbert and team owner Rooney wrote letters supporting Long. Colbert once coached Long at Division III Ohio Wesleyan College.

The Steelers' recommendations were influential because Pitt and the Steelers share Heinz Field and a football practice complex on the city's South Side.

Long, who accepted the job after spending most of Thursday with Nordenberg, takes over during a transitional period that could determine Pitt's athletic future for years to come. His very first day was especially frantic -- after an introductory news conference, he left for what might be the most important meetings in Big East history.

Long is Pitt's third AD in six months. After Pederson left, former assistant Marc Boehm spent a busy and eventful five months as interim athletic director. He fired women's basketball coach Traci Waites, saw men's coach Ben Howland leave for UCLA and chose assistant Jamie Dixon as Howland's successor and Georgia Tech coach Agnus Berenato as the women's coach.

Despite criticism he hired Dixon out of desperation after top choice Skip Prosser of Wake Forest rejected the job, Boehm expected to be promoted to athletic director. But when the offer never came, Boehm decided to rejoin Pederson as his top assistant.

Nordenberg defended the search process, arguing it was difficult to interview candidates when they were tied up with basketball responsibilities at their schools last winter. He also said that when the basketball openings occurred this spring, they became more of a priority than choosing an athletic director.

Nordenberg also suggested that if Boehm were more patient, the job might have been his. Nordenberg pointed out he held a variety of jobs at Pitt on an interim basis, three that lasted at least a year each.

"The longer a period of interim service goes, the better your chances might be of showing you really can do the job," Nordenberg said. "Marc Boehm served us well in that position. ... [But] Marc made the decision this was not the right set of responsibilities for him."

Nordenberg also said Dixon was hired because he was deserving, not because Pitt botched its search by not interviewing other top-tier coaches as it awaited Prosser's decision.

"We have a basketball program that is among the best in the country and we want to keep it there," Nordenberg said. "If that's your ambition, there's a certain set of qualities you're looking for. I believe in my heart Jamie Dixon possesses those qualities, and now he's got to deliver on that belief."

 

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