Next AD at the University of Minnesota: Why not a woman?

For far too long, gender issues have plagued the University of Minnesota's athletic department. Now, in the wake of Norwood Teague's necessary resignation, the university has an opportunity to chart a new course for athletics — one that fully embraces Title IX, empowers women in athletic administration and creates a work environment in which both women and men can do their jobs without harassment or bias.

What will it take? Start with an exceptional leader, one who will work tirelessly to heal the wounds left by Teague as well as the scars still visible from a long list of gender-related messes at the U since the 1972 passage of Title IX, the federal law meant to protect people from gender-­based discrimination in education programs and activities. If the best candidate to take over for Teague is a woman, so much the better.

University President Eric Kaler's No. 1 goal for the search process should be to come up with a pool of well-qualified candidates from across the country that includes women and minorities. Although there are too few women leading major collegiate athletic programs today, there are plenty of worthy possibilities for that pool, assured Patti Phillips, chief executive of the National Association of Collegiate Women Athletics Administrators (NACWAA).

"We're talking about a cultural shift here," Phillips said of the steady but slow progress that women administrators are making in college sports. "The same things are happening in corporate America."

Of the 350 NCAA Division I schools, just 31 have a woman serving as athletic director, according to the NACWAA. And among the 120 programs such as the U's that comprise the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), there are nine.

Women face two major obstacles in climbing the ladder, according to Phillips and others: The notion that they cannot possibly understand football, and the belief among some search committees and university leaders that men are better fundraisers. We suspect a just-us-guys mentality is at play with both objections.

An athletic director does not need to understand how to stop the spread offense, but he or she must have the business expertise and management skills necessary to oversee a major football program. The fund­raising claim is similarly bogus. In Minnesota and elsewhere, women are flourishing in for-profit and nonprofit roles that require the kind of credibility and relationship-building that serve as a foundation for successful fundraising.

The U needs to repair the culture in its athletics department, and already prominent alumni, boosters and sportswriters are floating names of potential candidates. Interim AD Beth Goetz, a talented and experienced administrator who deserves consideration, is the only woman we've seen mentioned to date. We'll add one more simply as an example of the kind of talent emerging in the ranks of female ADs: Eastern Michigan University's Heather Lyke.

Before taking over at EMU in 2013, Lyke worked as a senior associate athletic director at Ohio State University, where her duties included, at one time or another, strategic planning, NCAA compliance issues, budgeting, revenue generation and public relations.

She was hired at OSU in 1998 after serving as assistant AD for compliance as well as being the senior woman administrator at the University of Cincinnati. Lyke was a two-time captain and Academic All-Big Ten honoree as a softball player at the University of Michigan, where she received her degree in education. She later earned a law degree from the University of Akron.

As female ADs at FBS schools, Lyke and Sandy Barbour at Penn State and Julie Hermann at Rutgers are leaders in what Phillips believes will be a new era for women in athletics administration.