I don’t know how long Tom Izzo is going to continue coaching at Michigan State. But that’s about how long MSU has to get its athletic department and football program rolling.
In turbulent times, Izzo is a stabilizing presence. He’s the reason that athletic director J Batt following (and then beating) President Kevin Guskiewicz out the door — during a dizzying couple weeks of university dysfunction — only unsettles the Spartans’ world so much.
For example, Spartan Ventures, the new revenue-generating arm of MSU Athletics, which launches next week, might have been Batt’s baby, but Izzo brought in the seed money via his relationship with Greg and Dawn Williams, who remain committed. And while MSU strains to keep up financially and competitively in football, Izzo’s men’s basketball program just won 57 games combined in his 30th and 31st seasons, and enters his 32nd season with a team as anticipated as any this decade.
It’s juice that MSU needs right now and stability that every university craves. MSU has it because its 71-year-old basketball coach is still devoted to MSU, hasn’t lost his fire, and doesn’t have any hobbies.
But MSU would be wise not to keep leaning on Izzo so hard for its clout and as a figure who’s larger than its mess. When he’s gone, this BS won’t fly. Not from its president, AD, its board of trustees, nor its football program.
RELATED: Couch: Kevin Guskiewicz’s departure an unnecessary blow to MSU, which loses momentum and maybe more
The board is taking the most heat right now for the departure of Guskiewicz (who’s agreed to take the top job at Clemson), which led to Batt leaving to run the athletics operation at the University of Kentucky. Way too many people know the names of trustees Rema Vassar, Mike Ballow and Dennis Denno — people who hadn’t heard of them when they saw them on the ballot. Those three have been public in their dissent and questioning of certain initiatives, including the parts of Spartan Ventures which lack the transparency they feel should be available to an elected board responsible for oversight of a public university. It’s an argument with merit. The issue, as Guskiewicz and other board members see it, is when that dissent doesn’t end after the board has voted and reaches the podcast and editorial sphere.
The sense of self-importance and agenda comes through when you listen to some of these folks, even if they mean well, and even if they have good points. That’s the case in pretty much every political office. MSU’s Board of Trustees shouldn’t be seen as a political office. It sure as heck shouldn’t be an eight-year term. You’ll need legislative cooperation to change that, made more difficult because we bungled those terms, too, with term limits too short in the state legislature to effectively govern. So we might be stuck with this process. We need the political parties to choose the right candidates — surprise, they don’t sometimes — and for us to know who they are before we vote for them.
That said, Guskiewicz didn’t have to leave and Batt didn’t need to bolt, either. Guskiewicz had a firm majority on MSU’s Board, which tried to keep him, even those that didn’t always agree with him. Batt could have waited at least a year to make sure his vision aligned with the next president and to shepherd the launch of Spartan Ventures and its subsidiary, Spartan Media Ventures. For all of their talents and strengths as a duo, commitment to the cause at MSU was not among them. That has to be feature of the next MSU president and AD. It doesn’t mean you have to hire alums. But they’ve got to really want to be at MSU. And, ideally, they’ll see Spartan Ventures as worthwhile. Otherwise, the last year was just a waste of time.
“The Spartan Ventures arrangement is intended to be perpetual,” Batt said, sitting next to Guskiewicz, when asked about what would become Spartan Ventures if they left MSU. “There are opportunities, if it no longer serves the purpose of the university, to unwind it. But the goal of it is for it to be a permanent shift in how we operate. Ultimately, I think it’s what’s in the best long-term interest of MSU and MSU Athletics.”
I didn’t imagine then that they’d be gone before it launched. A lot of MSU Athletics employees have moved over to Spartan Ventures, which is set to go. But a new president and AD might see things differently, just as Batt didn’t see Alan Haller’s plans for an Olympic sports arena and district around it as fitting his vision.
New people, new ideas. And before then, at least a year in purgatory, until a president is hired and gets their feet under them. It might be hard to find the right athletic director before the president is hired. People like to know who they’ll be working for.
The damage in losing Guskiewicz and Batt could be most felt in fundraising momentum. On that front, what MSU Athletics needs most right now and forever more going forward is a relevant and competitive football team. Winning football solves a lot. It creates an energy even Izzo can’t match. It drives donations and revenues, elevates the university’s profile. It makes people feel good about the place, as long as people feel good about the people running the program. I think they will with Pat Fitzgerald. He inherited this challenge, one that’s now even greater than the one he was hired into — back when he had alignment with his AD and president. He, his staff, Spartan Ventures COO Jon Palumbo, whoever is named interim AD (perhaps Jennifer Smith again) and the rest of an organization that’ll be judged first and foremost by what happens with MSU’s football program, need that program to start moving in the right direction.
Fitzgerald and Co. can’t fix the board of trustees or make sure the university hires the right president — or undo the last month — but they can change the energy of the place.
Contact Graham Couch at gcouch@lsj.com. Follow him on X @Graham_Couch and BlueSky @Graham_Couch.
This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: Couch: The cure for Michigan State Athletics’ upheaval begins with winning football
Reporting by Graham Couch, Lansing State Journal / Lansing State Journal
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By Graham Couch, Lansing State Journal | USA TODAY Network
