KNOXVILLE – John Currie is not shying from the spotlight in his first days as the Tennessee athletic director.
Currie moved into his office at UT on Saturday, his 46th birthday, and quickly has reacclimated himself to the campus and city where he spent more than a decade as a graduate student and athletic department official.
The former Kansas State athletic director had coffee with Volunteers football coach Butch Jones on Saturday morning, attended baseball and softball games over the weekend and kept the momentum up Monday with several stops.
“Just getting out, being around, being transparent and communicating is something you’ll see from us,” he said during a 13-minute Monday morning appearance on Sports Radio WNML’s “1st Quarter.”
Currie said during the radio segment that one of his responsibilities is the “demystification” of college athletics.
He used the same wording to strike a similar tune with the faculty senate in the afternoon, after participating in a sexual assault awareness and prevention event at Thompson-Boling Arena in the middle of the day.
“Any time we can answer any questions or be of service or provide demystification of the athletics enterprise for any of you or any of your constituents, we’ll be happy to do that,” he told the faculty senate.
Currie received a strong introduction to the group of several dozen academics from Don Bruce, UT’s faculty representative to the SEC and NCAA. Bruce served on the athletic director search committee that included Peyton Manning, prominent boosters Charlie Anderson and Jimmy Haslam, board of trustees member Raja Jubran and senior associate athletic director Donna Thomas.
“When I heard who (Chancellor Beverly Davenport) had hired, I was absolutely elated, because John Currie was my first choice in this process,” Bruce said. “I’ll say that publicly.”
Bruce called Currie “the perfect person for this job” and encouraged the faculty to research Currie’s record at Kansas State, where he led the athletic department from 2009 until taking the Tennessee job.
Currie elaborated once Bruce yielded the podium.
“I know that occasionally there is some angst about things in athletics, and a lot of people have told me I’ve taken a really hard job and all that stuff,” Currie said. “But compared to what I walked into when I went to Kansas State, K-State had some problems, basically had some governance problems and basically a failed state, if you will, from an athletics enterprise standpoint.”
Currie said he made regular presentations to the faculty senate at K-State while new to the job and said he would be happy to do the same at UT, if asked.
“I would bring these spreadsheets and go through all these powerpoints,” Currie said. “Finally, they asked that I no longer come, because I took up too much time.”
The new athletic director made an 8 p.m. appearance on the “Vol Calls” radio program.
He said on the show that he spoke with every UT head coach over the phone within 24-48 hours of accepting the job and plans to hold face-to-face meetings with each of them in their offices in the coming weeks.
“Right now, I’m not spending a whole lot of time decorating the office or anything,” Currie said. “I’m really just walking around seeing people.”
Contact staff writer David Cobb at dcobb@timesfreepress.com.