MADISON – The Wisconsin Badgers are in a relatively rare position.
For just the third time in more than three decades, UW will be hiring a new athletic director.
Chris McIntosh left earlier in April to take a new position with the Big Ten as its deputy commissioner for strategy. Marcus Sedberry will serve as interim athletic director during the national search.
Pat Richter had the job for about 15 years in the 1990s and 2000s, followed by Barry Alvarez’s 17 years in the job and McIntosh’s five years. Alvarez and McIntosh were internal hires, and Richter came across town from Oscar Mayer in Madison.
Many names could be floated in the coming weeks and months as people who should receive consideration. It could be any of the names mentioned below or none of them. Any inclusion (or exclusion) on the list below does not necessarily indicate interest from UW or the potential candidates themselves.
Wisconsin’s lack of announced search committee or search firm adds to the uncertainty at this point in the process. This is all while UW also lacks a permanent chancellor amid Jennifer Mnookin’s move to Columbia University.
Here is an early look at candidates who could be potential fits for the Badgers, depending on what UW is looking for in its next AD:
Marcus Sedberry, interim AD at Wisconsin
If Wisconsin chooses to take the internal route again, all signs would point toward Sedberry.
UW tapped him to be the interim AD after four years as deputy AD at Wisconsin. He has supervised football since arriving in 2022 and added football general manager responsibilities in 2025.
Sedberry previously worked at Baylor, Arkansas, Central Florida and the NFL’s Philadelphia Eagles. His role at Baylor as senior associate athletic director included oversight of the football program.
Oversight of Wisconsin football is not necessarily the best resume item after the Badgers’ first back-to-back losing seasons since the early 1990s, but Sedberry will have the opportunity to prove himself as he inherits several challenges.
Jamie Pollard, AD at Iowa State
Jamie Pollard combines strong Wisconsin connections with a proven track record as a power-conference athletic director.
Pollard’s 21-year tenure at Iowa State has been undeniably successful. Football reached new heights under Matt Campbell, men’s basketball has reached the Sweet 16 in three of the last five seasons and women’s basketball last missed the NCAA Tournament in 2017-18.
The Oshkosh native previously spent seven years with the Badgers under Richter and Alvarez’s leadership. He has other connections to the state, too, as a UW-Oshkosh alum who spent two years as an accountant in Milwaukee before beginning his college athletics career.
Pollard is 61, though, and would need to leave an athletic department that he has called home for more than two decades. At the same time, a Big Ten school’s resources can be appealing as the top two conferences separate themselves financially from the rest of the pack.
Brad Alberts, president/CEO at Dallas Stars
Brad Alberts comes with an impressive résumé in the professional sports ranks.
Alberts has been the president of the NHL’s Dallas Stars since 2018 and the team’s CEO since 2020. It’s been a successful tenure, too, as the Stars have played postseason hockey in seven of the last eight seasons. He had various roles tied to sponsorships and sales for pro sports teams such as the Stars and MLB’s Texas Rangers before that.
He has connections to the state as a Ripon College alum and a Delavan native. Do those connections provide a strong enough pull to bring him back to his home state and away from a premier pro sports job? We may soon find out.
Sean Frazier, AD at Northern Illinois
Sean Frazier did enough to be a finalist for the AD job last time around (and may be the most logical finalist to be in the running again in 2026).
The Journal Sentinel reported that the three finalists in 2021 were McIntosh, Frazier and Beth Goetz before UW unsurprisingly hired McIntosh. Goetz, then at Ball State, now holds an enviable position as rival Iowa’s athletic director (where the Hawkeyes are in a good spot in football, men’s basketball and women’s basketball).
That leaves Frazier, who was Alvarez’s deputy AD in Madison from 2007-13 before taking the top job at Northern Illinois.
Since then, Frazier helped the Huskies earn a football-only invitation to join the Mountain West Conference and was one of five finalists for the Sports Business Journal’s 2021-22 athletic director of the year. His NIU football program has earned only three bowl berths in the last seven years, though, and exceeded eight wins once in the last 11 years.
Shawn Eichorst, deputy AD/COO at Texas
Shawn Eichorst has notable experience as an athletic director in the Big Ten and ACC and plenty of connections to Wisconsin although his last experience in the Big Ten did not end on a high note.
Eichorst – a Lone Rock native and UW-Whitewater alum – was a deputy AD under Alvarez at Wisconsin before leading athletic departments at Miami (FL) from 2011-12 and Nebraska from 2012-17.
His nearly-18-month tenure at Miami included the hiring of men’s basketball coach Jim Larranaga. At Nebraska, he most notably fired Bo Pelini (who went 67-27 in eight seasons) and hired Mike Riley, who went 19-19 in three seasons before Eichorst’s successor fired him.
He joined Texas’ athletic department in 2018 and has been the Longhorns’ deputy AD and chief operating officer.
David Harris, AD at Tulane
David Harris has experience as a Division I athletic director, connections to Wisconsin and the Midwest and a strong football hire on his résumé.
Harris began his tenure as the athletic director at Tulane in early 2024 and replaced Houston-bound Willie Fritz with Jon Sumrall, whose success has included a College Football Playoff berth in his second season. (Sumrall then left to take the Florida job.)
Harris previously spent nearly eight years as the AD at FCS-level Northern Iowa. He worked before that with Pollard at Wisconsin and then Iowa State. He was promoted three times during his four-year UW tenure, according to his old Iowa State bio.
Garrett Klassy, AD at Fresno State
Garrett Klassy is another sitting Division I athletic director with plenty of connections to Wisconsin.
Klassy is a New Glarus native and Wisconsin alum who began his career in the UW ticket office and has since worked at Tulane, Alabama, Oregon, George Washington, UIC, Nebraska, Houston and now Fresno State.
That includes experience as athletic director at UIC from 2017-19, at Nebraska on an interim basis in 2021 and at Fresno State since 2024. He oversaw UIC’s first 20-win men’s basketball season since 2004 and the then-Horizon League school’s arena naming rights deal.
Klassy has led Fresno State during the Bulldogs’ upcoming move to the reformed Pac-12 and hired football coach Matt Entz, who won nine games (including the Arizona Bowl) in his first season.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Who could replace Chris McIntosh as Wisconsin’s AD? 7 possible options
Reporting by John Steppe, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
