Williams named Athletic Director

By Brain Prater

The long road has came to an end for the athletic director search committee.  President Scanlon announced David Williams as Western’s new AD on March 7.  Scanlon offered  Western’s sixth AD position in history to Williams on Thursday morning and he accepted the position later that day. 

Williams will start May 1 at the latest and said he expects to be on campus much sooner. The seven-month process that started over once and reached another dead end, is finally concluded by the Friday press conference and contract agreement.

Williams received his bachelor’s in physical education and his master’s in educational administration at North Dakota State. 

Williams has the credentials to potentially be a very good leader for Westerns athletic department. He has sustained roles as the AD at UW-P since 2001. Williams was an assistant basketball coach at Augustana (S.D.), North Dakota State and Parkside, before entering administration.  

In addition, Williams has been the president of the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics.  Williams also stressed in previous interviews that as the head of the DII athletic directors association, he has seen a variety of examples  and similarities that he can adapt to working at Western.

 Scanlon and the committee a found many similarities between William’s previous AD position with University of Wisconsin- Parkside and Western.  Both schools accommodate about the same number of non-traditional, minority and full-time students, and are Division II universities. 
“We had an especially strong group of finalists, and Dave certainly represented he was worthy of the title of Griffon,” Dr. Scanlon said.

“It’s really eerie how similar the two universities are,” he said. “The one big difference is Western has more campus life. That’s one of the big reasons I took this job,” Williams said.

Williams said Western was going to make Spratt Stadium “a great place to watch a game” and promised VIP seating and other upgrades. During his press interview, he added he will sit down with members of every Western program to figure out each sports’ current needs. He  will do whatever it takes to fulfill them. Then Williams followed with a promise to shake as many hands, eat as many fundraising meals and make as many phone calls as necessary to raise money for those improvements including fundraising for Western’s Max Experience.

Nicoson, Western’s vice president for the university advancement and screening committee chair felt the Max Experience is important to Western and Is confident Williams will take it in stride.

“The Max Experience produces approximately $400,000 a year, and we cannot make improvement to the stadiums for that amount of money,” Nicoson said.  “We have to take some time until the funds cover it, and fundraising is a major role.”
Last season, Parkside ranked 58th in the Director’s Cup Standings. This was a ranking of the university’s success in all of its sports. Missouri Western ranked significantly lower at 128th.