Alex de la Osa

Florida football coach Dan Mullen was agitated after the Gators’ close loss at Texas A&M last month. Irked that the Aggies had enough people in attendance to create a home-field advantage, Mullen called on Florida fans to “pack The Swamp” at the Gators’ next home game.

Of course, in the age of COVID, that wasn’t going to happen. Mullen, caught up in the emotions of the team’s first loss, had unwittingly backed Florida’s athletic director, Scott Stricklin, into a corner with his misplaced rallying cry. Reporters immediately turned to Stricklin for a response.

It was a potentially volatile scenario that could have pitted coach against AD, but Stricklin defused the situation by saying he would listen to the medical professionals, not the football coach.

“In situations where there’s a lot of excitement, you can’t say something publicly that you want to be true unless you know it’s true,” Stricklin said of his approach to communications. “I think sometimes people get into trouble when they say something in a quote that they hope is true, but they don’t know it’s true.”

On the plane ride back to Gainesville, Stricklin took a seat next to Mullen and calmly but pointedly asked, “So, Dan, what were you thinking there?” Those who have worked with the Florida AD say that’s precisely his style — poised and unflappable. He’s at his best when he’s turning down the heat on a potentially flammable situation.

“Scott has this unique ability to take emotion out of it when there’s a decision to be made,” said Chip Howard, the Gators’ executive associate AD for internal affairs. “Athletics are, by their nature, highly emotional. He doesn’t let emotion get in the way.”

Stricklin greets fans at The Swamp and also engages with them on social media, where he has more than 76,000 followers on Twitter alone.Jay Metz

CALM IN THE SPOTLIGHT

Stricklin was named Sports Business Journal’s 2020 Athletic Director of the Year at the Sept. 30 Sports Business Awards for his run of achievements in facility development, including a new baseball park; broad-based competitive success; his savvy use of social media; and a $155 million fundraising campaign. 

The intangible with Stricklin is the background in communications that helps him navigate potentially tricky circumstances or thrive when talking directly to the fans through his Twitter account, which has more than 76,000 followers, one of the largest followings of any AD.

In 2003, Stricklin, then working in athletics at Baylor University, was appointed to a crisis team during the basketball scandal that broke after player Patrick Dennehy was murdered by a teammate. It was “horrific, intense, traumatic and overwhelming,” Stricklin said of the case that thrust the school into the nation’s news for all of the wrong reasons. He emerged as the front person for the group, a position normally reserved for a veteran university communications chief or an outside consultant, not the 33-year-old media relations guy from athletics.

Later, Stricklin became the spokesman for Kentucky basketball, which resides under the constant heat of the spotlight. More than once, Stricklin came around the corner of a hallway in UK’s Memorial Coliseum to find cameras fixed on him because of a developing story. 

When a UK player suffered a facial injury, Stricklin was asked by the media to model the face mask the player would wear in the next game. It was that level of scrutiny. 

Alabama AD Greg Byrne, who was on that UK athletics staff, planted the seed with Stricklin over many lunches at Qdoba that he had the chops to be an AD one day. Kentucky AD Mitch Barnhart, who hired Stricklin, in part, because of his experience in crisis communications, saw it too and gave him more responsibility.

“You could tell Scott was really intelligent and he had this ability to step back and see the big picture,” Byrne said. “He’s always asking, ‘Why can’t we do this or that.’” 

Stricklin called his time at UK a turning point for him professionally, a time of immense professional growth on a staff that included future ADs Rob Mullens (Oregon), Mark Coyle (Minnesota), John Cohen (Mississippi State) and Byrne. Stricklin likened going to work every day to a doctorate program for aspiring ADs.

“People either deal with feelings or facts,” Barnhart said. “In an emotional world, Scott is really good at weighing out the facts. That doesn’t mean he won’t get fired up about something, but he’s coming from a place of information and research.”

When Byrne got the AD job at Mississippi State in 2008, he soon hired Stricklin, essentially making him the deputy in the department. Most importantly, he took on more fundraising duties that helped Stricklin position himself for the AD chair when Byrne went to Arizona in 2010. 

LEAVING HIS DREAM JOB

Stricklin fulfilled a dream when he became the AD at his alma mater, Mississippi State. He grew up in Jackson, Miss., the middle of three children. His father traveled throughout the week with a job in sales, so his mother, a huge Cincinnati Reds fan, and Scott’s older brother, David, fostered his love of sports. 

Scott would disappear to his room for hours reading Sports Illustrated and The Sporting News. Whenever Mississippi State or Ole Miss played football games in Jackson, which was more common in the 1970s than now, David would take Scott.

“It didn’t matter who was playing in Memorial Stadium,” David Stricklin said. “If we could get tickets, we would go. SEC games in Jackson were always a big event.

“Scott would say, ‘Mom, one of these days I’m going to be somebody in sports and I’m going to get you free tickets to all the games.’ And he’s done that.” 

When the AD position opened at Florida in 2016, there were two schools of thought. It was either one of the five best jobs in the country with its abundance of resources or it was a thankless grind with relentless expectations, not to mention that the next AD had to fill the oversized shoes of Jeremy Foley, a legend in the industry after 25 years as the chief Gator.

Men’s tennis coach Bryan Shelton and Stricklin celebrate as the Gators went undefeated in conference play and won the SEC title in 2019.Courtesy of Florida Athletics

Some of the most heralded names in the profession were linked to the job before Stricklin emerged as the hire. Before he departed Mississippi State, Stricklin gathered his staff and explained every aspect of his decision. He was so torn from the process, Stricklin said he barely recalls the meeting. 

Leaving his home state and his school proved to be one time Stricklin couldn’t separate emotion from the equation.

“He ordered in lunch for the whole staff and explained his decision and how hard it was to leave,” said Georgia Southern AD Jared Benko, who was on Stricklin’s MSU staff. “It was so genuine. He didn’t owe that to any of us, but he just wanted to share what was in his heart.”

That Stricklin and Foley have turned out to be such good friends is a testament to both. The anticipated angst over the transition from Foley to Stricklin never materialized, say those who were in the office. Stricklin’s humility and ego-absent style contributed to that, as did their friendship from having worked in the SEC together.

It was Foley who first advised Stricklin that there might be an opportunity at Florida.

“I’m not sure how it happened, but we became good friends the last few years” before Stricklin became a Gator, Foley said. “We’d gravitate to the same table during AD meetings or dinners, and bust each other’s chops. Because of that, it made the transition easy.”

During Stricklin’s first week in Gainesville, Foley made a point of saying that he had stepped down from the job. “I’m not the AD at Florida; I just want to help,” Foley said. “But I’ve always respected the fact that Scott’s in the chair now.”