Troy Dannen reveals why he left Tulane for Washington AD job
New Washington athletic director Troy Dannen was introduced to the media and fans Tuesday with an introductory press conference.
Dannen was hired away from Tulane, where he led the Green Wave athletic program to much success in New Orleans. But the opportunity to make the jump to the Power Five level proved to be a major draw for the highly-regarded administrator.
He discussed during the press conference what enticed him about the job in Seattle.
“I wasn’t looking to move away from Tulane,” Dannen said. “We kind of built something from scratch there. It was what you do your whole career, you hope to build something like that. I’m not a great maintainer. I want to continue to do things. When this particular job opened, this has everything. First, it starts with where you want to live. I’m at the point in my career: I wasn’t going to leave if it wasn’t a place that the family wanted to live. I’m not going to move again — God willing, President willing. Where is it that we want to be. But I said this earlier I want to win in everything and I don’t want to go someplace where you can’t win in everything. Winning is really important.”
The Huskies athletic department has done a lot of winning in its history. The school has nine NCAA titles and two claimed football championships.
But while it has a great history, it also has an unknown future. It will be moving to the Big Ten next season as the college sports world continues to change and change.
He said the university is to set up to embrace those changes and succeed upon them.
“There are a lot of schools and a lot of places that are sitting on the railroad tracks looking back at history, yearning for the past and they’re gonna get run over by the next train,” Dannen said. “What I know about UDub is we’re gonna look around the corner, and there was a commitment. That was one of the things I talked about with everybody that I talked to in the interview process. I wanted to make sure we’re willing to look around the corner so the train doesn’t catch us. But we’re looking to make sure we stay ahead of the train.”
“There are a lot of changes happening. I mentioned this earlier, we’re control freaks. We think we control everything. The next wave of changes — and if you think the last three to five years has been tumultuous, the next three to five are going to put it to shame. There there are legal cases. A lot of things outside the control of those of us in inside of athletic department that will dictate to us a lot of our future rather than us getting to dictate our future. So being prepared for whatever that is and trying to stay one step ahead of that. So that we come out of whatever happens running and not walking or not on our knees. That’s the challenge.”