COLLEGE STATION – After nearly 30 years and 30 national titles as an athletic director at three of the nation’s prominent universities, Bill Byrne announced Tuesday he plans to finally join the crowd.
“I’m going to come back here and watch the Aggies,” said Byrne, who mixed in humor with an emotional farewell before many of his Texas A&M coaches and a crowd of supporters in the Zone Club of Kyle Field. “I’m going to be just like the rest of you. I’m going to (gripe) about the ticket prices, I’m going to complain about the concession stands – everything. So expect to see a lot of me.”
Byrne’s near decade-long tenure as A&M’s athletic director wrapped up on Tuesday, more than a year before his contract was up on Aug. 31, 2013.
“In almost 30 years as an athletic director you take a lot of pounding on the job, and I was tired,” said Byrne, 66. “I was ready to go. It was time.”
Byrne
Senior associate athletic director John Thornton will serve as interim athletic director. Byrne, who also served as athletic director at Oregon and Nebraska prior to his A&M arrival in December 2002, will be a “special advisor” to A&M president R. Bowen Loftin from now until Aug. 31. Byrne will then be paid a lump sum for the final year on his contract (he makes $690,000 annually) in making way for a new AD.
“We arrived ultimately at an amicable resolution,” said Loftin, who was attending graduation ceremonies at A&M’s Qatar campus and didn’t attend Byrne’s farewell news conference.
A&M regent Jim Wilson and A&M vice president for marketing and communications Jason Cook will serve as co-chairmen of a search committee to tab Byrne’s replacement. While at Nebraska Byrne was a founding father of the Big 12 in the mid 1990s, and A&M is exiting the league after 16 years and joining the Southeastern Conference on July 1.
Byrne said Tuesday he didn’t play a part in the move to the SEC – “Those are decisions made above my pay grade,” he said – but added that he played the role of loyal servant during the process.
“My dad was a soldier and my mom was an Army nurse, and you’re taught to salute and carry on,” he said.
Under Byrne’s direction A&M won 17 national titles, including the last six in outdoor men’s and women’s track, nine in equestrian, one in men’s golf and one in women’s basketball.
“We need (Byrne) in the first year of the SEC for the transition,” said A&M women’s coach Gary Blair. “But when you’ve been beaten down so much and second-guessed so much … How many other sports do we have here? We’ve won in every damn one of them, but we’re penalized for not winning in football.
“He should have been allowed to retire at his own pace, like a Nolan Ryan or a great athlete, because of what he has accomplished.”
Byrne, whose family attended the farewell news conference, said he was most proud of changing A&M’s “culture from hoping to win to expecting to win,” and said his biggest disappointment was not winning more in football. A&M’s most prominent program – the one also funding most of the other sports – went 58-54 under coaches Dennis Franchione and Mike Sherman during Byrne’s tenure.
“Football is the sport I probably know most about, and last year was an absolute crusher for me,” Byrne said.
The Aggies started the season ranked in the top 10 but finished 7-6, in blowing five large second-half leads under Sherman, who was fired by Loftin on Dec. 1 despite Byrne’s steadfast support of his coach.
“We lost four games by nine points and dropped 60 (passes),” Byrne said Tuesday. “I thought we were so much better last year athletically and with our team speed, but we didn’t win the close ones. Last season crushed me.”