Pat Chun on House v. NCAA, facilities upgrades, Jedd Fisch and more

Highlights from my conversation with Washington's athletic director.

SEATTLE — One Saturday early in his tenure as Washington’s athletic director, Pat Chun took a walk across campus. He likes to return phone calls on the move, with earbuds in. After taking in the cherry blossoms and gazing at the architecture, he called his wife, Natalie, who, like Chun, attended Ohio State. He remembers telling her of his new surroundings: “You see the history of the buildings, the focus on academics, research, the med school here — this is a Big Ten school.”

“Any way you cut it,” Chun continued, “in the Big Ten that I grew up in — that my wife went to school in, as well — this is a Big Ten school.” Their family already spent considerable time in Seattle, Chun said, be it for concerts, Seahawks games or to watch their daughters play club sports. In the two months since they moved west after six years in Pullman, Chun says he’s come to believe that “we were meant to be here, and this move is the best thing for our family.”

Is it a little surreal to hear this from the former AD at Washington State, one of two schools most negatively impacted by the Pac-12’s disintegration? Could be. Does it also maybe remind you that these same institutional credentials — academics, research and the like — once made Washington a perfect fit for that century-old power conference on the West Coast? It might.

What the Pac-12 lacked, of course, was the visibility, influence and media-rights riches enjoyed by schools in the Big Ten, a league Chun knows well, having spent 15 years as an administrator at his alma mater, from 1997-2002, before AD jobs at FAU and WSU. Washington won’t enjoy those riches to the same degree as 16 of its new conference peers, as UW and Oregon were cut into the league at roughly a half-share, and won’t reach fully-minted status until the Big Ten’s next media-rights deal in 2030-31. Delayed financial gratification aside, the hope is that attaching to one of college football’s two most powerful conferences will best position UW to navigate the challenges inherent to deregulation and school/athlete revenue sharing.

“The nice thing is, we’ll have a voice and a seat at the table,” Chun said, as college athletics hurtles toward whatever comes next.