This is from the Rivals publisher on Rivals for MSU. I assume so of you might have a little interest and others can berate J. 😉
It’s a long read:
When the Michigan State contingent stepped off the airplane in Georgia last week, they had a goal in mind that evening – they wanted to see if their #1 choice for the athletic director job at Michigan State – J Batt – was the right man for the job.
Admittedly, MSU President Kevin Guskiewicz considered this shooting high. When the search for a new AD began, Guskiewicz said he wanted the opportunity to talk to those who he considered to be the best of the best – and MSU’s Board of Trustees had given him the freedom necessary to conduct this search the way he saw fit. He worked with campus leaders and advisors to develop the leadership profile – and then he executed on it the way he thought best.
Guskiewicz does not suffer with diminished self-perception that some at Michigan State have had over the years. He knows what he has here. He understands that MSU is a sleeping giant. And he is trying to normalize success.
His mindset could be viewed in a simple yet powerful question that set the tone of his approach to this job search: Why wouldn’t the best in the business want to talk to us about working at Michigan State?
Blessedly free from the micromanagement of the university’s trustees – who have notoriously screwed things up at Michigan State in the past – Guskiewicz worked closely with the search firm to identify the top candidates for the job (he wants to call the finalists this week and thank them for their interest – they were an impressive group, he said).
His goal wasn’t to get the best available AD; he said his goal was to get the best AD out there, whether they were considered available or not.
Perhaps that person didn’t necessarily even know they wanted to go. Perhaps that person had just signed a new five-year contract a few months ago. Perhaps that person was making $979,000 per year and was set to receive a $100,000 raise each year under his newly-inked contract. Perhaps J Batt was interested.
Guskiewicz knew that in order to land his top candidate, the search committee had to be small. Any of the top tier candidates would not want it known that they were talking opportunities with other universities. So, after the search firm was able to get Batt on the line, Guskiewicz arranged the meeting, and six Spartans made their way to Georgia – Kevin and Amy Guskiewicz, Tom and Lupe Izzo, Greg and Dawn Williams – and visited with J and his wife, Leah.
The meeting that night in Georgia was the culmination of what Guskiewicz had told the Board of Trustees he was going to do – aim high.
The conversation was long, involved, and revolved around three key topics:
• MSU’s storied athletic program
• MSU’s long legacy of excellence
• MSU’s ambitious future opportunities
The conversation went as well as you could imagine.
Even Tom Izzo – who had cautioned to take the selection process slow and not rush it – was impressed.
“The first night I met him, the first impression was a great impression,” said Izzo after Batt’s introduction Wednesday afternoon. “I was really impressed. I think the president did a phenomenal job. I was impressed and I voiced my opinion that way.”
During the introductory press conference on Wednesday, Izzo talked about how the university’s athletic department has to do more than fly like an airplane, it has to take off like a rocket.
If it could be boiled down to one reason why former AD Alan Haller was replaced with Batt, it seems as if it was this. Haller was a good man, who led with integrity, but – by all accounts – he flew the department like an airplane. Slow and steady approaches, guidelights in place, knowing where the runway was. Batt is going to launch the athletic department up into space like a rocket, into the starry expanse filled with hazy NIL rules, player revenue sharing, and necessary fundraising measured by the tens of millions.
Batt used an analogy to highlight the difference in his approach: "(MSU is) well positioned, not to survive the (changing landscape of college sports), but to take advantage of it, to take ground, to move forward, and make progress."
In a conversation afterwards, Guskiewicz alluded to the fact that with Batt, he’ll have all the positives that Haller brought to the job, and he’ll also have more, including elite business acumen and tremendous fundraising skills. In Batt, Guskiewicz thinks he'll have someone who loves fundraising – someone who shifts into another gear when it’s time to raise money. Someone who cut a video to Spartan Fund donors before he left campus Wednesday to go back and put the finishing touches on his Georgia Tech exit – it’s important how you leave somewhere, he told me after the press conference Wednesday – before he officially starts at Michigan State in two weeks.
In his first media scrum as the presumed athletic director – the Board of Trustees meets next Friday, June 13 with his contract before them – he said his first priority is to listen, to meet with all of his coaches, and then hit the road to meet with donors and supporters.
As far as why he was willing to take a look at Michigan State – why he was willing to answer when Guskiewicz called – he said that a lot of it came down to leadership. Batt believes that Guskiewicz knows what high-level intercollegiate athletics looks like at a championship level, and he has full faith and trust in him. That’s why he picked up the phone even though he was happy at Georgia Tech.
When asked about not having Spartan pedigree, his answer gave way to his confidence.
“I certainly worked at a lot of different institutions where I might not have had a tie before, and we’ve been able to be pretty successful,” he said. “So, it’ll work out. We’re going to look at new and different ways to approach this industry, whether it’s new opportunities for revenue, look at the way we arrange staff – we’ll have to find new and different ways to serve our coaches and our student-athletes so they can do their jobs really well.”
If you are looking for J and you can’t find him in his office at 1855 Place, you should find a varsity practice and look over in the corner.
“If you ever have a bad day in college athletics, you haven’t gotten out of your office,” he said. “If I’ve had a long day, I’ll go find a practice. It’s my favorite way to reconnect with the mission which is opportunities and impact. I’ll go sit in the corner of … a practice and won’t tell anyone I’m there and I’ll just get to watch practice – and it’s awesome.”
Asked about what makes him a good fundraiser, he replied:
“The most important thing in fundraising is developing genuine relationships. At the end of the day, people give to people. Building genuine relationships is the most important thing. I invest in those and have done so over many, many years in many places – and I think you’ll see that I’ll do a lot of that.”
Izzo said fan support and athletic department stability are the two biggest keys moving forward:
“I hope our fans trust the process … our fans need to get with us. Don’t be fair-weather fans. Understand there is a process to being great. I’ve worked for a lot of presidents, a lot of ADs, and a lot of football coaches, and that’s not always good. Stability, I think, is why we’ve been successful. We’ve had two basketball coaches in 51 years. We need to get some stability here.”
The fact that Guskiewicz reached high and brought in someone who is considered excellent at what he does wasn’t lost on Izzo.
“We should be able to get the best of the best,” said Izzo. “Sometimes we think small and we should think bigger. He had great respect for Michigan State and what we are.”
If Batt is successful, it will be because he refuses to do things the way they have always been done before. During a day in which Guskiewicz’s plan to move his university’s athletic department from “airplane mode” to “rocket mode” became reality, the metaphor gained traction and the vibe around the place today went a little something like this:
An athletic program doesn’t need to taxi down a runway like an airplane, gradually lifting into a predictable ascent. It needs to launch like a rocket — with fire and unapologetic velocity — shaking the very ground it leaves behind. Because this isn't about reaching a cruising altitude and staying there. It's about escape velocity. About breaking free from the gravity of “how it’s always been” and soaring into the rare air where the bold live and the doubters look up in awe.
A plane charts a course and stays within it. A rocket? A rocket redefines the sky. It leaves contrails of belief, ambition, and transformation — igniting a culture, galvanizing a community, and proving that momentum is not inherited, it's created. When a program lights that fuse – when the right people, vision, and belief align – the program doesn't just fly in the same airspace as the other airplanes, looking no different on the radar than its competitors. It roars past them all, redefining what the view of the night sky actually looks like from a different perspective.
Now it’s time for Batt to execute the launch for which he was hired
It’s a long read:
When the Michigan State contingent stepped off the airplane in Georgia last week, they had a goal in mind that evening – they wanted to see if their #1 choice for the athletic director job at Michigan State – J Batt – was the right man for the job.
Admittedly, MSU President Kevin Guskiewicz considered this shooting high. When the search for a new AD began, Guskiewicz said he wanted the opportunity to talk to those who he considered to be the best of the best – and MSU’s Board of Trustees had given him the freedom necessary to conduct this search the way he saw fit. He worked with campus leaders and advisors to develop the leadership profile – and then he executed on it the way he thought best.
Guskiewicz does not suffer with diminished self-perception that some at Michigan State have had over the years. He knows what he has here. He understands that MSU is a sleeping giant. And he is trying to normalize success.
His mindset could be viewed in a simple yet powerful question that set the tone of his approach to this job search: Why wouldn’t the best in the business want to talk to us about working at Michigan State?
Blessedly free from the micromanagement of the university’s trustees – who have notoriously screwed things up at Michigan State in the past – Guskiewicz worked closely with the search firm to identify the top candidates for the job (he wants to call the finalists this week and thank them for their interest – they were an impressive group, he said).
His goal wasn’t to get the best available AD; he said his goal was to get the best AD out there, whether they were considered available or not.
Perhaps that person didn’t necessarily even know they wanted to go. Perhaps that person had just signed a new five-year contract a few months ago. Perhaps that person was making $979,000 per year and was set to receive a $100,000 raise each year under his newly-inked contract. Perhaps J Batt was interested.
Guskiewicz knew that in order to land his top candidate, the search committee had to be small. Any of the top tier candidates would not want it known that they were talking opportunities with other universities. So, after the search firm was able to get Batt on the line, Guskiewicz arranged the meeting, and six Spartans made their way to Georgia – Kevin and Amy Guskiewicz, Tom and Lupe Izzo, Greg and Dawn Williams – and visited with J and his wife, Leah.
The meeting that night in Georgia was the culmination of what Guskiewicz had told the Board of Trustees he was going to do – aim high.
The conversation was long, involved, and revolved around three key topics:
• MSU’s storied athletic program
• MSU’s long legacy of excellence
• MSU’s ambitious future opportunities
The conversation went as well as you could imagine.
Even Tom Izzo – who had cautioned to take the selection process slow and not rush it – was impressed.
“The first night I met him, the first impression was a great impression,” said Izzo after Batt’s introduction Wednesday afternoon. “I was really impressed. I think the president did a phenomenal job. I was impressed and I voiced my opinion that way.”
During the introductory press conference on Wednesday, Izzo talked about how the university’s athletic department has to do more than fly like an airplane, it has to take off like a rocket.
If it could be boiled down to one reason why former AD Alan Haller was replaced with Batt, it seems as if it was this. Haller was a good man, who led with integrity, but – by all accounts – he flew the department like an airplane. Slow and steady approaches, guidelights in place, knowing where the runway was. Batt is going to launch the athletic department up into space like a rocket, into the starry expanse filled with hazy NIL rules, player revenue sharing, and necessary fundraising measured by the tens of millions.
Batt used an analogy to highlight the difference in his approach: "(MSU is) well positioned, not to survive the (changing landscape of college sports), but to take advantage of it, to take ground, to move forward, and make progress."
In a conversation afterwards, Guskiewicz alluded to the fact that with Batt, he’ll have all the positives that Haller brought to the job, and he’ll also have more, including elite business acumen and tremendous fundraising skills. In Batt, Guskiewicz thinks he'll have someone who loves fundraising – someone who shifts into another gear when it’s time to raise money. Someone who cut a video to Spartan Fund donors before he left campus Wednesday to go back and put the finishing touches on his Georgia Tech exit – it’s important how you leave somewhere, he told me after the press conference Wednesday – before he officially starts at Michigan State in two weeks.
In his first media scrum as the presumed athletic director – the Board of Trustees meets next Friday, June 13 with his contract before them – he said his first priority is to listen, to meet with all of his coaches, and then hit the road to meet with donors and supporters.
As far as why he was willing to take a look at Michigan State – why he was willing to answer when Guskiewicz called – he said that a lot of it came down to leadership. Batt believes that Guskiewicz knows what high-level intercollegiate athletics looks like at a championship level, and he has full faith and trust in him. That’s why he picked up the phone even though he was happy at Georgia Tech.
When asked about not having Spartan pedigree, his answer gave way to his confidence.
“I certainly worked at a lot of different institutions where I might not have had a tie before, and we’ve been able to be pretty successful,” he said. “So, it’ll work out. We’re going to look at new and different ways to approach this industry, whether it’s new opportunities for revenue, look at the way we arrange staff – we’ll have to find new and different ways to serve our coaches and our student-athletes so they can do their jobs really well.”
If you are looking for J and you can’t find him in his office at 1855 Place, you should find a varsity practice and look over in the corner.
“If you ever have a bad day in college athletics, you haven’t gotten out of your office,” he said. “If I’ve had a long day, I’ll go find a practice. It’s my favorite way to reconnect with the mission which is opportunities and impact. I’ll go sit in the corner of … a practice and won’t tell anyone I’m there and I’ll just get to watch practice – and it’s awesome.”
Asked about what makes him a good fundraiser, he replied:
“The most important thing in fundraising is developing genuine relationships. At the end of the day, people give to people. Building genuine relationships is the most important thing. I invest in those and have done so over many, many years in many places – and I think you’ll see that I’ll do a lot of that.”
Izzo said fan support and athletic department stability are the two biggest keys moving forward:
“I hope our fans trust the process … our fans need to get with us. Don’t be fair-weather fans. Understand there is a process to being great. I’ve worked for a lot of presidents, a lot of ADs, and a lot of football coaches, and that’s not always good. Stability, I think, is why we’ve been successful. We’ve had two basketball coaches in 51 years. We need to get some stability here.”
The fact that Guskiewicz reached high and brought in someone who is considered excellent at what he does wasn’t lost on Izzo.
“We should be able to get the best of the best,” said Izzo. “Sometimes we think small and we should think bigger. He had great respect for Michigan State and what we are.”
If Batt is successful, it will be because he refuses to do things the way they have always been done before. During a day in which Guskiewicz’s plan to move his university’s athletic department from “airplane mode” to “rocket mode” became reality, the metaphor gained traction and the vibe around the place today went a little something like this:
An athletic program doesn’t need to taxi down a runway like an airplane, gradually lifting into a predictable ascent. It needs to launch like a rocket — with fire and unapologetic velocity — shaking the very ground it leaves behind. Because this isn't about reaching a cruising altitude and staying there. It's about escape velocity. About breaking free from the gravity of “how it’s always been” and soaring into the rare air where the bold live and the doubters look up in awe.
A plane charts a course and stays within it. A rocket? A rocket redefines the sky. It leaves contrails of belief, ambition, and transformation — igniting a culture, galvanizing a community, and proving that momentum is not inherited, it's created. When a program lights that fuse – when the right people, vision, and belief align – the program doesn't just fly in the same airspace as the other airplanes, looking no different on the radar than its competitors. It roars past them all, redefining what the view of the night sky actually looks like from a different perspective.
Now it’s time for Batt to execute the launch for which he was hired
