Daniel French and Herman Frazier will oversee Syracuse University’s athletic department as it searches for a new director of athletics, SU announced on Thursday morning. French, the university’s general counsel, will serve as interim AD and Frazier, previously a deputy athletic director, has been promoted to senior deputy athletic director.

Former Syracuse AD Mark Coyle held the position for 11 months, but left for the same position at Minnesota last Wednesday.

Here are three things French and Frazier said at their press conference Thursday morning.

French’s job is to be a ‘steward’

French repeatedly used the word “steward” to describe what his role will be as interim director of athletics. He will continue serving as the school’s general counsel while AD. He also said he’s had several interim positions in his career and that the first thing he’ll have to do is “very little” — just handle what’s coming across his desk.

Though French doesn’t have much background in athletics, he said the athletic department would report to the general counsel for compliance issues. He said he won’t apply for the permanent athletic director position because he joked he’s a better attorney than AD.

“I wouldn’t have taken on this position without Herm essentially assigned to the day-to-day operations,” French said. “We have a period of time in which we have a stewardship role here. The Chancellor’s made it very clear that he wants to move very quickly to a new athletic director.”

The pairing of French and Frazier came together recently

Frazier said he received a call from Chancellor Kent Syverud last night and the two met this morning. The pairing of French and Frazier came together quickly since then. Syverud wasn’t in Syracuse while attending other meetings and just arrived back last night.

After former AD Daryl Gross stepped down last March, chief facilities officer Pete Sala was immediately named interim athletic director. This time it took eight days since Coyle left SU. Though French didn’t want to speculate about Sala’s interest in the AD position, he said Sala is playing a pivotal role in the $255 million West Campus Project, which includes renovations to the Carrier Dome and Archbold Gymnasium.

“The things that have come together for this press conference today have happened within the last nine hours. So we’re still fresh off some things,” Frazier said. “… We’re just going to let things digest a little bit and then we will decide what direction the university will go.”

The new AD will “hopefully” be hired before the next step in the West Campus Project

French was asked if construction on the West Campus Project will begin before the next AD is hired and he said “hopefully” the AD search process will end before then. It took SU about three months to land Coyle last summer, but whether or not the university will use the same search firm, or a search firm at all hasn’t been decided yet.

The search process will likely take a couple months, French said. Meanwhile, there are no specific timelines for the renovation of the Dome roof.

“I think the next step in the West Campus Project is really to turn to the college campus, our constituencies in the community, see what they want specifically,” French said. “I think that process hopefully takes a little longer than this process of selecting the new AD.”

Published on May 19, 2016 at 12:26 pm

Contact Paul: pmschwed@syr.edu | @pschweds