WEST LAFAYETTE − For six months, Tommy McClelland lived in a Houston apartment with his spouse and two teenage sons.
Not ideal, his wife Jessica recalled.
McClelland stood behind a Purdue University podium during his introductory press conference as the school’s new athletic director, turned to his two teenage sons and advised them to pursue their dreams.
McClelland’s own pursuit meant he was never too far from a moving van.
There were the two houses – one on each side of the lake – McClelland resided in while he was working his way up the athletics administration ladder at McNeese.
From Lake Charles, Louisiana, to Ruston, roughly 200 miles north and where McClelland spent seven years of the nearly two-decade journey that’s landed him here, inside Purdue Memorial Union on a rainy August morning. But not before there were also moves to Nashville and Houston, the family living in temporary residences at both stops before finding a home.
“It’s not fun moving your kids and having to uproot people,” McClelland said.
McClelland’s family was looking for a place to call home and Purdue University’s board of trustees was looking for a home run hire.
Purdue didn’t pinpoint any particular set of parameters during its search and interview process.
It wanted to think outside the box and welcome fresh ideas while not straying away from its identity. McClelland’s resume included his two most recent stops at Rice and Vanderbilt, universities Purdue sees itself on par with academically, and two decades in college athletics administration roles, almost unheard of for a 44-year-old who was hired as McNeese’s athletic director when he was just 26.
“He’s young, but he’s very experienced,” Purdue board vice chair Mike Klipsch said. “At that age, you’re most likely more able to react to changes, which have been flying fast. That was a critical thing to us.
“We felt somebody like Tommy would be able to thrive in this new environment, which is ever changing.”
Purdue hopes it has landed its home run hire, one whose reputation as a fundraiser in college sports’ current landscape was every bit as important as his track record in athletics. McClelland is the first Purdue athletic director walking into the current college sports landscape. Revenue sharing and NIL didn’t exist when Mike Bobinski was hired in August 2016.
Now the man constantly on the move comes to a place where people don’t leave.
McClelland will become just Purdue’s fifth full-time athletic director since 1942.
West Lafayette isn’t Houston or Nashville.
But it can be home.
“We lived in a really, really small community in Ruston, Louisiana, and we fell in love with it,” McClelland said. “When we think about coming to a place like West Lafayette, it really excites our family. Probably not everybody would say that, but for us, we have experienced it. This is what we were looking for.”
Sam King covers sports for the Journal & Courier. Email him at sking@jconline.com and follow him on X and Instagram @samueltking.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: From Ruston, LA to West Lafayette: Why Purdue’s new AD believes he’s found the perfect fit
Reporting by Sam King, Lafayette Journal & Courier / Indianapolis Star
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Sam King, Lafayette Journal & Courier | USA TODAY Network
