Inside The Huskies

Troy Dannen Leaving After Only 5 Months as UW Athletic Director

The athletic department exec is returning to his native Midwest to take over at Nebraska.

Dan Raley

Troy Dannen Leaving After Only 5 Months as UW Athletic Director
Troy Dannen Leaving After Only 5 Months as UW Athletic Director /
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New University of Washington athletic director Troy Dannen on Monday and Tuesday was in Rancho Mirage, California, telling his leading donors what they could expect from him and Husky athletics in the days ahead.

Except Dannen wasn't entirely forthcoming at the two-day event — whatever the plan was, it turned out to be only a number of hours in concept and he wasn't going to be part of it.

Dannen, as first reported by ESPN's Pete Thamel and confirmed by the school, is leaving to become the next Nebraska athletic director, accepting a six-year deal, after just five months on the job in Montlake.

As he exits, the Iowa native is believed to be the shortest-serving AD in the history of the school with a track record that wasn't all that memorable.

He will be remembered for losing highly successful Husky football coach Kalen DeBoer to Alabama after just three months on the job and a mere four days following the Huskies' 34-13 defeat to Michigan in the College Football Playoff championship game in Houston. 

He'll be recalled for uprooting himself from Montlake less than than two weeks after firing basketball coach Mike Hopkins and departing before he could barely draw up a pool of replacement candidates.

"I'm dumbfounded," said Dave West, a leading UW donor and former Husky basketball player who attended the California alumni event. "He said this was his last job. He said he had 10 good years in him — he didn't have 10 months in him. I just can't believe this guy would bail on us at such a critical time."

Within an hour of Dannen's news leaking out, alums privately were sounding the alarm about Husky basketball in particular and the potential for irreparable damage without an immediate coaching hire. 

On Monday, the lame-duck athletic director told the alums in that first segment he would have a new coach in place by next week. BYU coach Mark Pope, a former Husky, Kentucky and NBA player, and Utah State's Danny Sprinkle were circulating among UW program supporters as strong possibilities as they ate dinner and shared intel. 

On Tuesday, Dannen and new football coach Jedd Fisch were the guest speakers at the annual Dawg Days in the Desert event, both casually attired in polo shirts and shorts at a sun-splashed and well-attended gathering of athletic supporters on the edge of Palm Springs. 

UW president Ana Mari Cauce similarly was in attendance and seemed her usual cheerful self.

It's not clear if Dannen, who left Tulane after nine years for the UW, had shared his career plans with anyone he worked with while he was in California. Certainly he didn't tell the attentive donors.

Raised on a farm in Iowa and a University of Northern Iowa alum, Dannen will return to his native Midwest and replace Trev Alberts, formerly a standout Cornhuskers linebacker who surprised everyone at his alma mater by leaving Nebraska recently to become the Texas A&M athletic director.

"How could he take that job knowing what we had to do?" West said of Dannen. "This is just incredible."

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Dan Raley
DAN RALEY

Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.

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