Maryland president Darryll Pines looking to hire athletic director in "six to eight weeks"

Maryland athletics officially filled one vacancy on Wednesday afternoon after naming Buzz Williams the next head coach of the men’s basketball program. While a quick higher was needed with the transfer portal already two weeks in, that leaves one more – and arguably the more important hire – left on the plate of school president Darryll Pines. In a perfect world, when would Pines announce the next athletic director?

“Today,” Pines joked with reporters following the introductory press conference.

The vacancy emerged after news of Damon Evans-to-SMU quickly materialized ahead of the NCAA Tournament before it was announced at the podium during the Grand Canyon pregame press conference. While the press conference didn’t help, Evans and SMU agreed to a six-year deal on Friday before Evans penned his exit letter to Maryland fans, announcing both his departure and the transition of Colleen Sorem into interim AD status.

But with a chance for the university’s administration to make a strong commitment to lead the athletic department ahead of the rev-share and NIL era, Pines said Wednesday he will look to have the athletic director search finalized by the mid-to-end of May with an announcement expected next week on next steps.

“I have a wish, if it could be done today, if it could be done at the same time, it’d be perfect,” Pines added. “You know, it's a process of probably going to evolve over six to eight weeks. What I've been telling everybody is my hope is to announce on Monday, the process and the search firm that is going to work with us. That's my goal.”

Pines added that a search firm wasn’t utilized for the men’s basketball search with interim AD Colleen Sorem, deputy AD Brian Ullmann, former head coach Gary Williams and several boosters involved in a process that ultimately took just 60 hours to unfold with Buzz Williams a mainstay in the search.

“We used a process that we would normally use and that was led by Colleen Sorem…we had to move so fast.”

Pines, of course, issued support for Sorem while introducing Williams to the media.

“I had complete confidence in her ability to lead the athletic department in this time period and that confidence has only strengthened as we have navigated this process together – unexpectedly – over the last 12 days.”

Related Links