Veteran Athletic Director Cheryl Levick made more than 20 hires in her five years of building Georgia State into a Division I FBS athletic department. That experience should come in handy in Levick’s new role with Turnkey Sports & Entertainment’s search business.
Levick will lead the launch of Turnkey Search’s new college division, along with former Boston College AD Gene DeFilippo.
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Levick’s title will be senior vice president and she begins in Turnkey’s New Jersey offices this week. DeFilippo will continue as a senior adviser working out of Boston.
Turnkey Search’s new college division will focus on all levels of administration and coaching hires, said Len Perna, Turnkey’s chief executive. Turnkey has had an executive search business for nearly 20 years, but until now it had not worked in the college space.
“Going forward, we foresee more overlap” with college and pro sports, Perna said.
Turnkey Search enters a crowded and competitive college space already populated by Chuck Neinas, Dan Parker, Bill Carr, Jed Hughes of Korn/Ferry International, Todd Turner’s Collegiate Sports Associates, DHR International and Bob Beaudine of Eastman & Beaudine, among others.
They are typically hired by the school president to search for an AD, or hired by the AD to search for head coaches. Those searches can run from $50,000 into the six figures, depending on the size of the school and the services offered. For example, some schools do their own background checks, while others ask the search firm to conduct personal and/or NCAA-related checks.
Levick said Turnkey will have all of those capabilities, as well as consulting on contracts, executive coaching and crisis management.
After she stepped down at Georgia State earlier this year, Levick said she hoped to find a job that would put her 30 years of experience in athletic administration to work. She didn’t know Perna before she interviewed for the job. A mutual friend, Joan Cronan, the former women’s AD at Tennessee, suggested to Perna that Levick might be interested.
Levick met Perna and DeFilippo for breakfast in Boston a few months ago and talks progressed from there.
“We’re going to be ramping up the college division as quickly as we can,” Levick said. “We’re going to be out meeting with ADs, conferences, executive directors of coaches associations, to get our name out there.”
Levick and DeFilippo said they will have a scalable set of offerings that can be customized for searches and recruiting.
“It’s evident that there’s no one way to be an AD anymore,” DeFilippo said. “We’ve seen ADs come out of the pro ranks. We’re seen schools hire ADs out of private business. Sometimes you have to go out of the box to find the right fit. AD is a different position than it used to be.”
