Matt Whisenant had been on the job as Wyoming’s assistant athletic director for compliance for 20 months the first time he visited Bozeman.
That evening 13 years ago, Montana State’s volleyball team swept the Cowgirls in front of a raucous crowd of 1,307 in the 1,900-seat Shroyer Gym. The trip to the Gallatin Valley left an impression on Whisenant.
“I remember that we were good but Montana State beat us bad,” Whisenant said on Monday evening at the Stadium Club on the third floor of Bobcat Stadium. “It was a great venue, great atmosphere. MSU had a lot of international students because their flags were hanging. The drive was beautiful and I left really impressed.”
On Monday, Whisenant was back on the Montana State campus for the first time since September of 2003. Wyoming’s current Deputy Director of Athletics is one of five finalists for Montana State’s vacant athletic director position.
“No. 1, the reason I’m interested in this position is what you see in front of you: support,” Whisenant said as he addressed crowd of about 50 of Montana State’s most influential supporters. “We have the opportunity to be successful and people are passionate about Bobcat athletics. People care, people want to be successful, very similar to Wyoming. The pieces of the puzzle are here. It’s getting all of us on the same page, putting that plan together to be successful.”
Matt Whisenant interviewed at Montana State for the vacant AD position on Monday
While on campus, Whisenant met with all of Montana State’s head and assistant coaches, academic faculty and athletic department staff and student athletes. He took a facility tour and checked out the rest of campus before spending an hour at the Stadium Club.
“I’ll tell you, I’m more excited now that I was at 7:15 this morning when we started,” Whisenant said in his opening statement. “You can see the opportunities here.”
Peter Fields has served as Montana State’s AD since 2002. Earlier this year, MSU President Waded Cruzado announced Fields’ contract would not be renewed upon its expiration on June 30.
Cruzado’s vision has helped MSU grow its enrollment to the largest in the history of the Treasure State. Montana State is approaching 16,000 undergraduate students. Cruzado has also played a heavy hand in helping MSU perform facility upgrades to Bobcat Stadium and Brick Breeden Fieldhouse.
“You can’t be successful without the support of your president and your campus,” Whisenant said in an interview with Skyline Sports. “Everything I’ve seen and read and my meeting with President Cruzado today reinforced that. If your president doesn’t support athletics, which there’s no question she does, you aren’t going to get accomplished what you want to get accomplished. That’s what you need to be successful and MSU has it.”
Whisenant emerged from a pool of more than 60 applicants. A search committee including: Terry Leist, MSU Vice President of Administration and Finance; Camie Bechtoldt, MSU Senior Associate Athletic Director; Brett Forder, President, Bobcat Club; George Haynes, MSU Faculty Athletic Representative; Ellen Kreighbaum, Former MSU Athletic Director; Chris Kukulski, Bozeman City Manager; Bob Mokwa, Member, MSU University Athletic Committee; Chad Newell, Bobcat Student Athlete; Riley Nordgaard, Bobcat Student Athlete; Cory Pulfrey, Chairman, MSU Alumni Foundation Board; and Melanie Stocks, Director, MSU Sports Facilities teamed with the Parker Executive Search firm to research each candidate and add to the pool any person the consulting firm felt was a good fit. The committee and Parker Executive whittled the group to eight semifinalists.
“It’s been a quick process but a very thorough one,” Leist said.
The group was cut to four finalists, Leist said in an email last week. On Monday, Leist, the head of the advisory group to the search committee, confirmed a fifth finalist will come to Bozeman for an interview on Tuesday.
Whisenant, a defensive end and outside linebacker at East Tennessee State in the 1990s, is in his 12th year in Laramie. He has served as the Deputy Director of Athletics for the Cowboys for the past four years. He is involved with every aspect of the Wyoming athletic department, including direct oversight of the football, men’s basketball, women’s basketball and wrestling programs. He is also involved with academics, compliance, sports medicine, and strength and conditioning.
“One of the great things I bring is I’ve don’t it all,” Whisenant said. “I’m fortunate enough in my position at the University of Wyoming that I’ve had my hands in everything, marketing, branding, facility campaigns, fundraising. Internal I oversee football, basketball, wrestling. My background is internal, compliance those sort of things. You name it, I’ve done it.”
Whisenant’s responsibilities also stretch to budgeting, fundraising and revenue enhancement, the latter something Montana State has stated will be key factors in the candidate chose to replace Fields.
Wyoming Deputy Athletic Director Matt Whisenant
“We are fortunate enough at Wyoming to have a ton of state support so kudos to the legislature in our state, but we’ve done $125 million in facility upgrades,” Whisenant said. “We are finishing a basketball arena and we are about to embark on a new performance center that was $44 million. We built clubs and suites, we built an indoor practice facility, which the coaches want here. We’ve done small renovations of team rooms, resurfacing tracks.”
The 43-year-old was born in Manassas, Virginia. Whisenant has a bachelor’s degree in physical education from ETSU obtained in 1996 and a master’s degree in sports science from East Tennessee State obtained in 1999. He earned credits toward a Ph.D. in sports medicine at Ohio State before taking a job at Tulane in New Orleans in 2001.
Whisenant has worked for three different ADs at Wyoming, each with different management and leadership styles, he said. During his meetings with coaches, potential upgrades to the weight room, the training and medical facilities and an indoor practice facilities were mentioned most consistently as areas of concern. Whisenant said he will put a priority on things that can benefit student-athletes first and foremost.
If hired at MSU, Whisenant said he has a 90-day plan to simply “listen and learn.”
“But once we get to 90, let’s start putting our plan together. What are our priorities? The coaches want an indoor practice facility. We need an academic center. We want cost of attendance. We have to prioritize,” he said.
“Let’s get everyone on the same page, get moving in the right direction so we can get this thing done. It seems like right now from what I’ve gathered that we have been a little bit sporadic and went in a bunch of different directions. We have been cannibalizing each other. We need someone to push us in the same direction.”
Photos by Brooks Nuanez. All Rights Reserved.
