Over The Pylon

President Ferguson is so excited. And he just can’t hide it.

A loyal friend of the Pylon has sent along Ball State President Paul Ferguson’s email message to the Ball State community distributed this morning. He’s excited.

January 8, 2015

Colleagues in the Ball State Community:

There is much excitement in the air as we begin a new academic semester. We added to that excitement this morning as we introduced Mark Sandy as Ball State’s new director of intercollegiate athletics. He was selected from a talented pool of candidates following a nationwide search. I am especially appreciative to the AD Search Committee, led by Dr. Charlene Alexander, for the diligent and highly professional conduct of the search in providing this unanimous recommendation.

Mark has nearly 40 years of experience in intercollegiate athletics, and since 2005, he has served as the director of athletics at Eastern Kentucky University, where he was responsible for all athletic department activities, including NCAA compliance, hiring coaches, strategic planning, marketing and public relations, and fundraising. He understands the invaluable connections among departments at a university and has shown a great ability to forge alliances across campus. With his proven record of success of student-athletes in the classroom and in competition at Eastern Kentucky, Mark will be a great addition to the Ball State team.

During two of his last three years as director of athletics, EKU won the coveted Ohio Valley Conference Commissioner’s Cup, a symbol of overall athletics excellence in conference-sponsored championships.

Before arriving at Eastern Kentucky, he worked for five years at the University of Richmond as associate athletic director and senior associate athletic director. In the latter role, he directed the Spider Athletic Initiative, a $20 million campaign to build an on-campus stadium for the university’s football, soccer, lacrosse, and track teams.

I am confident that Mark is the right person to keep our athletics program continuing in its positive trajectory. I know you will welcome Mark, and his wife, Kitty, as great additions to our leadership team.

With best regards,

Paul W. Ferguson
President

It’s never official until the new boss sends an email out to the rest of the staff about a new hire, so mark it down. In my experience there’s also some sort of potluck or brown bag lunch, but admittedly this email probably went to way too many people for that. People would bring Tupperware, the lids would get all mixed up, it would be anarchy.

Press conference for the official introduction at 11 on BallStateSports.com.

Filed under: ADSearch14, Ball State |