Current athletic director Joel Maturi is stepping down July 1 and will take a one-year transitional job that will include teaching and fundraising duties and advising the new AD.
Teague is a key early hire for Minnesota President Eric Kaler, who in his first year at the school was searching for a leader who could bring new life to the Gophers’ mediocre football and men’s basketball programs.
Teague has been athletic director at the Richmond, Va., school since 2006, and joined the Rams after five years as associate athletics director at North Carolina.
Teague made two smart hires to help turn the Rams into a basketball power in the Colonial Athletic Association and a dangerous team in the NCAA tournament. After losing Jeff Capel to Oklahoma in his first year on the job, Teague hired Anthony Grant to take over as coach.
When Grant left for Alabama, Teague plucked 32-year-old Shaka Smart off Billy Donovan’s staff at Florida. Smart has turned into a star, leading the Rams to the Final Four in 2011. This past season, the Rams beat Wichita State in the second round and were a missed, buzzer-beating 3-point shot from knocking out Indiana and advancing to their second straight Sweet 16.
Teague will have immediate coaching decisions to make at Minnesota. None is bigger than whether to give a long-term contract extension to men’s basketball coach Tubby Smith, who has been trying to secure a new deal for more than a year and is lobbying for a new practice facility at Minnesota.
Kaler said in February that the biggest challenge facing Minnesota’s new AD would be changing the public’s low perception of Minnesota sports. The football team has not been to the Rose Bowl in 50 years. The men’s basketball team has missed the NCAA tournament two years in a row and hasn’t won a game in the tournament since 2007.
Under Teague, VCU’s athletic annual fund has grown more than 119 percent, with averaging more than 20 percent annually. He has also led the campaign to build a $10 million practice facility for men’s and women’s basketball and other sports.
Though Teague comes from a school without a football program, he has held positions at North Carolina, Arizona State and Virginia.
The Gophers noted that Teague has led VCU to all-time attendance records at Verizon Wireless Arena, and that season ticket revenue has doubled since his arrival, which may have played a role in his hire given the dwindling attendance at most Minnesota sporting events aside from men’s hockey this season.
Big Ten athletic directors’ salaries range from roughly $350,000 to more than $1 million annually. When Kaler announced the hiring of a national executive search firm in February, he said Minnesota probably would pay in the middle of that range.
