It’s not so much that he’s leaving. It’s where he’s going!
It’s only Tuesday but this week has been a month.
Just one day after men’s basketball coach Kyle Smith left to be the new head coach of the Stanford Cardinal, athletics director Pat Chun is also on his way out, albeit for a bit more of a “knife straight into the spinal column” type gig.
Sources: The University of Washington is finalizing a six-year deal to hire Pat Chun, the athletic director at rival Washington State, as the school’s new athletic director. He’s been the AD at Washington State since 2018 and also worked as FAU’s athletic director. pic.twitter.com/FuqYt5fXVd
— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) March 26, 2024
Chun’s hiring at UW comes just a week after previous athletics director Troy Dannen bolted from Montlake to run the Nebraska Cornhuskers after just five months on the job.
That Chun is leaving shouldn’t be too big of a surprise, in 2021 alone he reportedly interviewed for two openings with the Kansas Jayhawks and Northwestern Wildcats. It had been clear for a while that Washington State would not be Chun’s last stop.
This job being the one though particularly stings because of every reason you can think og. Washington has spent the better part of a year trying to bury Washington State, driving the final nail in the Pac-12 coffin, being the lead defendant in WSU and Oregon State’s lawsuit and now this. It is an especially good hire for a school that will desperately need to tap into Chun’s acumen for fundraising and hiring good coaches but man, couldn’t they have looked elsewhere?
Expect Anne McCoy, Senior Deputy Athletics Director, to fill the job in an interim role while President Kirk Schulz looks for Chun’s permanent replacement.
If you’re going to release a statement Pat, maybe avoid “once a Coug, always a Coug”. Just a thought.