Washington hiring Pat Chun reminds of August's coldblooded decision
In the end, the rivalry didn't matter.
Which surprises you more: that Washington is hiring Washington State’s athletic director? Or that once the shock of Troy Dannen’s departure wore off, this pretty quickly felt like the most logical outcome?
Just as Nebraska needed only a week to swap Dannen in for Trev Alberts, Washington’s selection of Chun as its next AD required only six days — a victory in itself, considering the heavy lifting required in the upcoming months as the school transitions to the Big Ten.
Washington made Chun’s hire official with an announcement Tuesday afternoon, and will introduce him at a Thursday press conference, one day after it introduces new men’s basketball coach Danny Sprinkle.
It’s another decision UW has made at the expense of a rival that increasingly finds itself on the wrong end of the college-athletics food chain. It stems from that transformative morning in August, when UW president Ana Mari Cauce declined to sign a media-rights deal proposed by Apple that would have kept nine of the Pac-12’s members together. Instead, she steered her school to the Big Ten, a decision that left WSU and Oregon State behind in a two-member conference, their futures still entirely uncertain.