Notre Dame is the school most likely to appear on the diploma on an AD’s wall.
No. of current ADs who received an undergraduate degree from that school:
| Notre Dame |
10 |
| North Carolina State |
6 |
| Boston College; Kansas State; Michigan |
5 |
| Brown; Providence; North Carolina; South Carolina; Wake Forest; Illinois |
4 |
No. of ADs with bachelor’s degrees in these areas:
| Business administration |
58 |
| Health, physical education and recreation |
41 |
| Political science |
28 |
| Communications |
28 |
| Sport management |
23 |
| History |
19 |
| Education |
17 |
| Accounting/Finance |
11 |
| Economics |
10 |
| Marketing |
10 |
258 current ADs have at least one master’s degree; 13 of them have two.
No. of ADs who received a master’s degree from that school:
| Ohio University |
22 |
| Massachusetts-Amherst |
8 |
| Ohio State |
6 |
| Springfield College |
5 |
| Florida State; Oklahoma; St. Thomas; West Virginia |
4 |
| Education |
48 |
| Business administration |
38 |
| Health, physical education and recreation/Coaching/Exercise physiology |
19 |
| Counseling |
9 |
| Public administration |
8 |
44 ADs have a PhD, although no single school stands out. Of those, 27 focused their doctorate studies on education. Each of these schools boast two ADs with doctorates:
Indiana
Kansas
Michigan
Ohio State
Southern Illinois
Stanford
Texas A&M
Note: John Hardt (Bucknell) is a University of Iowa College of Education doctoral candidate. Daniel J. White (Buffalo) is working to complete a PhD in higher education at the University of Mississippi. Once completed, he would join Brad Teague (University of Central Arkansas) as the only other AD with a PhD from Mississippi.
48 ADs are working at the same school where they earned their bachelor degree; 15 of those also received their masters there. Six of them enrolled as freshmen and never left campus.
| AD |
School |
First year on campus |
| Mike Holder |
Oklahoma State |
1966 |
| Jeff Altier |
Stetson |
1978 |
| Lynne Robinson |
Mount St. Mary’s |
1980 |
| Jay Jacobs |
Auburn |
1981 |
| Brian Hutchinson |
Morehead State |
1992 |
| Bob Grant |
Wright State |
1992 |
Southern Cal AD Pat Haden has two bachelor’s degrees, one in English from USC and one in philosophy, politics and economics from Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. Illinois State AD Larry Lyons has two as well, a bachelor’s degree in accounting from his alma mater and one in biology from Illinois.
Bobby Valentine from Sacred Heart is the only AD without a college degree. He attended USC but was a first-round draft pick of the Los Angeles Dodgers and didn’t return to school. He played 10 years in the majors and later coached in MLB. Sacred Heart is his first AD job.
