Greg Byrne has been the Athletic Director at Arizona for almost seven years. News broke late Sunday evening that he may be headed back to the SEC.
On May 3, 2010, Greg Byrne officially took over as Arizona’s 11th Athletic Director. Sunday evening Greg Hansen sent out a tweet that shook the University of Arizona Athletics community.
Expect Arizona AD Greg Byrne to be named Alabama's athletic director as soon as Monday.
— Greg Hansen (@ghansen711) January 16, 2017
As you can expect, total chaos ensued from Arizona fans and media in the Twitterverse. It seemed as if we were all going through the five stages of grief at a rapid pace. However, the first question that popped into my head was, “Alabama is looking for a new AD?”
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Actually, if I’m being honest, the first question in my head was, “Huhhh??”
Definitely a huge loss to Arizona, as we just can’t seem to shake the bad breaks, starting with the heartbreaking loss to Coastal Carolina in the College Baseball World Series.
According to Cecil Hunt with Tidesports.com, the current AD at Alabama is indeed stepping down, and it appears Byrne may perhaps be the replacement.
Bill Battle will step aside as Alabama athletic director this week, The News has learned. Details coming at https://t.co/FCKoCraxso
— Cecil Hurt (@CecilHurt) January 16, 2017
It appears that Bill Battle went through cancer treatment last summer and a Yahoo! Article back in July revealed Battle began stem cell treatment earlier in 2016.
With everyone digging for as much information as possible, the news began to steamroll quickly as confirmations started coming through, tweet by tweet.
Via the Star:
— AZ Wildcat Country (@Wildcat_Country) January 16, 2017
"Jeff Stevens, a UA booster & co-namesake of the Lowell-Stevens Football Facility, confirmed Byrne's departure Sunday night."
Greg Byrne will surely be missed. He oversaw the massive expansion and development for the Arizona football team complex. When Sean Miller was being pursued heavily by Maryland a couple of years ago, Byrne stepped in to make sure Miller stayed.
It will also be interesting to see how long Rich Rodriguez truly has at Arizona. Typically, a new AD likes to come in and make changes, bringing in their own flare. You especially see this happening when a head coach of a major sport hasn’t been successful. If Rich Rod didn’t have one year to turn things around before, you could bet he does now.
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Whoever is next will have big shoes to fill. All in all, Arizona is losing a great Athletic Director. We should be thankful to Greg Byrne for what he’s done, and to his family for their sacrifice. This could be the beginning of a domino effect, with the UofA President possibly next. Bear Down, Greg, and Bear Down, Arizona!