By Taylor Nigrelli
Opinion Editor
St. Bonaventure athletic director Steve Watson has accepted the same position at Loyola University in Chicago, as was first reported by The Intrepid.
Watson will remain athletic director for 30 days before his resignation is official, according to St. Bonaventure University president Sister Margaret Carney O.S.F.
Carney said there are no plans for an interim athletic director as of Wednesday, but the search to replace Watson permanently will be a nation-wide one.
“He will need to be replaced,” Carney said. “But, since we learned this yesterday afternoon, right now, we’re concentrated on sharing the information. Those plans will be made as soon as we can do that.”
“We’ll do a national search, and if we have an internal candidate, they will be considered in that search. We’ll invite people from all over the country.”
Watson, a Franklinville, N.Y. native, served as athletic director for seven years. St. Bonaventure teams won three Atlantic 10 championships during his time (men’s basketball in 2012, men’s swimming and diving in 2013 and 2014) while the women’s basketball team captured the Atlantic 10 regular season title in 2012 and went on to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament.
Sports information director Steve Mest worked in the athletic department through Watson’s entire run as athletic director. He had nothing but praise for Watson’s work, especially his role in making the men’s basketball program relevant and competitive again after the 2003 Jamil Terrell scandal decimated the program.
“Steve deserves the ultimate credit – he’s the captain of our ship. He hired Mark Schmidt, who turned around the men’s basketball program. He deserves all the credit for that, it was his call…as far as bringing back St. Bonaventure’s men’s basketball, Steve deserves all the credit.”
Watson played college basketball at Rutgers and Bowling Green. His mother and late brother and father also worked for St. Bonaventure in some capacity.
Notable alumnus Adrian Wojnarowski, ’91, caused a mini-stir on Twitter Tuesday when he weighed in on Watson’s departure.
His tweet read, “Sad day for St. Bonaventure, losing Steve Watson as AD. (If you’re offered the job, insist Richard Trietley is nowhere near your department).”
Wojnarowski is an NBA reporter for Yahoo!. He’s widely considered one of the best and most prominent NBA reporters in the country. He has nearly 800,000 followers on Twitter.
Trietley is the vice president for student affairs at St. Bonaventure University. Neither he nor Carney would comment on the matter.
nigreltn11@bonaventure.edu
