“Conventional wisdom will tell you, don’t follow The Guy,” Creighton’s new Athletic Director Marcus Blossom said in his introductory press conference on Tuesday. “You want to follow the guy that follows The Guy, if you’re smart, right?”
Speaking of conventional wisdom, it also tells you that you only have one chance to make a first impression. Blossom made a good one, straddling the fine line between reverence for the past and goals for the future while checking all the usual introductory press conference boxes.
On the former, he paused his own event to ask for a round of applause to celebrate Bruce Rasmussen — while adding that his predecessor’s legacy was one of the reasons he was attracted to the Creighton job. As for the latter, he mentioned his goals are for CU’s teams to win more Big East titles, make more frequent deep runs in NCAA Tournaments, and compete for national titles. Standard stuff for an introduction to a power conference A.D., in other words.
That’s why it was important for him to acknowledge the past, because the people who will be tasked with meeting those goals are already here, and were seated in the front row of the press conference. From Greg McDermott to Kirsten Bernthal Booth, to Ed Servais and Jim Flanery, Ross Paule to Johnny Torres and on down the line, CU has successful coaches in place, with 10 of the 12 hired by Rasmussen. And the two that predate Rass’ tenure, Softball’s Brett Vigness and Women’s Golf’s Debbie Conry, were hired one month apart in the summer of 1993 while he was the top deputy to A.D. Tom Moore.
Earning the trust of those coaches is paramount on Blossom’s To-Do list. He hopes his approach, work ethic and values will help that happen.
“We have a stellar group of coaches,” Blossom said. Gesturing to them in the front row, he continued, “and I want to help you and join you in supporting our student athletes. So I will be there. I’ll engage. I’ll listen. I’ll challenge you. And I expect you to do the same thing for me.”
Chosen from a field of candidates that numbered around 20, Blossom emerged as the favorite after several conversations with Creighton President Daniel Hendrickson. The school hired national search firm Collegiate Sports Associates to assist in the process.
A July 28 letter to alumni and Jaybackers from Father Hendrickson outlined the process:
“To ensure that multiple, diverse voices are a part of this process and to help me identify our next director of athletics, I have created an advisory search committee composed of University and alumni leaders.
Jan Madsen, the University’s executive vice president, has agreed to chair the advisory committee. She brings extensive experience working closely with me on operations across the University as a member of my executive team and has profound knowledge of Creighton Athletics. Joining Jan will be Dan Burkey, BSBA’81, a Creighton alumnus and former Creighton senior vice president and member of the President’s Cabinet, who had oversight of Athletics during his tenure; Jim Jansen, JD’73, also an alumnus, President’s Cabinet member, and the University’s general counsel; Neil Norton, PhD, associate dean in the School of Dentistry and Creighton’s NCAA Faculty Athletics Representative; Sarah Walker, PhD, interim vice provost for Institutional Diversity and Inclusion; and Mark Walter, BSBA’82, a Creighton alumnus, member of the Board of Trustees, co-founder and chief executive officer of Guggenheim Capital, LLC, and chairman and controlling owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers. I am so grateful for their willingness to help, and I look forward to their insight.”
Notably, no current athletics staff, coaches or players were on that search advisory committee, at least not officially. But Hendrickson told media on Tuesday that many of them were involved on an informal basis.
As they searched for their ideal candidate, two questions emerged, according to Hendrickson. One, what does Creighton need as an instituation, and Two, what’s the next level for athletics?
“We didn’t just want to get some hotshot from a big school. We wanted someone who fits who we are. To bring the Jesuit piece, the Big East, the Midwest, basketball player … (Marcus) has a lot of great qualities that fit.”
Boasting a resume that includes stints as Associate Athletic Director at Brown and Providence, Senior Associate Athletic Director at Boston College, and Athletic Director at Holy Cross, Blossom has impressed his colleagues everywhere he’s been. As a player at Northeastern, he went from a bench player on academic scholarship to the team’s best player by his junior season. Assistant coach Frank Martin — no slouch in the toughness department himself — saw a bit of himself in the young player. He told Holy Cross Magazine in 2019 that “I bonded with him because of how competitive he was, the will to win that he had. [One time] I put a new drill in at practice. I said to myself, ‘We’re wasting our time; we’re getting nothing out of the drill,’ so I jumped in to demonstrate how to do the drill properly. The guy I picked to go against was Marcus because I knew he wouldn’t back down.”
As the defacto CFO for Boston College athletics from 2015-2019, Blossom was also the sports administrator for men’s basketball and other sports, he ran the recreation and intramural department, he oversaw human resources inside the athletic department, and he led BC’s production assignments for ACC Network. He did so many things that when he left for Holy Cross, it took three people to replace him, according to then-A.D. Martin Jarmond.
Describing his role in athletics budgeting and financial operations at BC, Blossom said in that same Holy Cross Magazine article that “the numbers part is the easy part. The challenging part, the part that distinguishes a good athletics administrator from a bad one, is communication. It’s all about communicating the why, how important certain things are.”
That’s a theme Blossom revisited on Tuesday in Omaha.
“I joked with some of our colleagues that I spend more time with our coaches and staff than anybody. This really is a people business. Dealing with people, making sure they are heard, and understanding how important the community is — that’s one of my big learnings from Holy Cross.”
Only time will tell if Blossom, well, blossoms on the Hilltop.