Oklahoma Warns AD Candidates of Job’s Sedentary Life-style

The subsequent individual to take the massive chair in Oklahoma Sooners athletics higher get comfy—actually.

On Tuesday, the University of Oklahoma formally posted the job opening for the place of athletic director—formally titled Vice President for Intercollegiate Athletics Programs—following this summer time’s announcement that longtime AD Joe Castiglione will retire for the publish and transition to an emeritus function.

Whoever fills Castiglione’s seat will inherit a $200-plus million division and a to-do record written largely in company jargon. It contains, in keeping with the job posting, setting a “long-term strategic vision,” “identify(ing) innovative opportunities,” “establish(ing) a forward-thinking, creative culture” and so forth.

While the objectives could sound indirect, their execution might be largely … gluteal.

The job’s “working conditions,” per the posting, requires the profitable candidate to “sit for prolonged periods.” 

Castiglione has been one of many highest-compensated ADs within the nation. His most present deal—signed in 2021 and on account of run by June 30, 2028—paid him $1.32 million final fiscal 12 months, not together with efficiency bonuses.

In May 2025, Castiglione despatched a department-wide e mail confirming that, in gentle of the dawning of the athlete revenue-sharing, Oklahoma could be making workers layoffs (“a limited reduction in force”) and that his personal compensation would “reflect these realities.” It shouldn’t be recognized how his pay was particularly impacted.

Ironically, then maybe, the AD hiring search is being run by a agency referred to as The Athlete Group, run by former Philadelphia Eagles govt Jake Rosenberg. The firm’s website exhibits that the OU job is at present its solely lively workers search.

The job posting doesn’t specify compensation, past it being “competitive.” 

Castiglione has served as OU athletic director for 28 years, and his departure corresponds with a generational exodus of well-entrenched ADs from across the nation, together with Ohio State’s Gene Smith, Notre Dame’s Jack Swarbrick, Iowa’s Gary Barta, Cal’s Jim Knowlton, Butler’s Barry Collier, BYU’s Tom Holmoe and Navy’s Chet Gladchuk. North Carolina’s Bubba Cunningham, in the meantime, is about to step down subsequent 12 months and transition into a brand new function and pay grade as “senior advisor.”

Counting Castiglione’s, there are at present 15 open Division-I AD jobs, according to AthleticDirectorU’s “AD Tracker.”