UTC athletic director search could resume soon

Friday, January 1, 1904

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Arkansas-Oklahoma State Live Blog

The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga may have a new chancellor Friday. When it will have a new athletic director remains unknown.

Steve Angle, senior vice president at Wright State University, has been recommended by UT system president Joe DiPietro to be the next chancellor. According to a UT news release, if Angle is approved by the UT board of trustees, his effective start date will be July 1.

UTC has been without a full-time athletic director since July, when Rick Hart left for Southern Methodist University. Laura Herron, senior associate athletic director and senior woman administrator, has been the interim AD since Hart's departure.

The search for Hart's replacement was halted in September, after retiring chancellor Roger Brown stepped down. Herron said Debbie Ingram, who chairs the search committee, will be in touch with the new chancellor as soon as possible to determine how to proceed.

"We are used to limbo," Herron said of the athletic department. "When Dr. Brown had to step away, we knew that it might be a year, total, before a new athletic director was brought in."

Herron said she hasn't met Angle -- she was attending the SoCon athletic directors' meetings last month when he visited UTC -- but she has interacted with him via email and has heard nothing but good things about him.

The athletic department is going ahead with everything it can, Herron said, including working on future budgets and facilities improvements, as well as the daily business of Mocs sports. UTC won Southern Conference regular-season championships in women's basketball and wrestling Monday.

Wright State is known for having a quality mid-major basketball program, which plays in the Horizon League. The Ohio university does not have a football team.

In the past five years, according to news reports, the Wright State athletic department has had to make numerous budget cuts -- something UTC had to endure as well.