The Search, Part 2: The profile

Part 2 of a 7-part series on the UAB athletic director search. Read Part 1: The job | The Ingram departure | The fan reaction

The last time UAB hired an athletic director, the university retained Parker Executive Search, assembled a 19-person search committee chaired by Dr. Harold Jones and produced three finalists: Mark Ingram from Temple, David Harris from Iowa State and Jon Fagg from Arkansas. Ingram got the job on May 1, 2015, at a base salary of $300,000 on a five-year contract.

That was 11 years ago. The job has changed more in that span than in the previous 30.

The 2015 profile

Ingram was a development guy. Executive Senior Associate Athletic Director at Temple — an American Athletic Conference school, a future conference peer. Before that, he led a central role in Tennessee's Capital Campaign that raised $336 million. He also worked at Georgia and Missouri. His resume said one thing louder than anything else: this man can raise money and build buildings, skills he learned working in big-time athletic departments following the established path up.

That profile made sense in 2015. UAB needed infrastructure. The Football Operations Center didn't exist; at the time he was hired, UAB didn't have football and had not even decided whether it would return or not. Protective Stadium didn't exist. The basketball practice facility didn't exist. Ingram was hired to build, and he built. Part 1 of this series covered the infrastructure he left behind. The question now is whether the 2026 search produces a candidate built for 2026 — or one built for 2015.

What the search looked like

Group of 6 schools use search firms for athletic director hires approximately 37% of the time — roughly twice the rate of head football coach searches, according to Athletic Director U. Since 2008, 217 universities have used search firms for AD or head football coach hires.

UAB used Parker Executive Search in 2015. Parker has completed 93 FBS athletic director and head football coach placements across more than 200 searches. The other major firms with Group of 6 placements, per Hunt Scanlon Media: Collegiate Sports Associates placed Jeramiah Dickey at Boise State in 2021, along with ADs at Bowling Green, Akron and UNLV. CarrSports Consulting placed Gerald Harrison at Marshall in 2025. DHR Global has placed ADs at Fresno State, San Jose State, Colorado State and Fordham. TurnkeyZRG has conducted more than 200 intercollegiate athletics searches.

Fees range from $50,000 to $150,000, according to Athletic Director U, the Tampa Bay Times and Sportico. Idaho paid Parker $54,000. NC State paid Parker $75,000. USF paid $100,000. Tennessee paid more than $120,000.

UAB announced a national search on August 18 — the same day Ingram's departure was made public. No search firm has been publicly identified as of this writing. UAB's past practice has included engaging an independent search firm.

The timeline on these searches is shorter than most fans assume. Boise State hired Dickey in approximately 10 weeks with CSA in 2021. Marshall targeted 60 days and completed its search in about 10 weeks in 2025. South Alabama promoted Daniel McCarthy — its deputy AD — in roughly seven weeks earlier this summer. Troy named Kyle George, its interim and deputy AD, in about three months late last year. The general pattern when a search firm is engaged: six to 12 weeks.

It's possible UAB could have a new athletic director by mid-October, although the university has not yet publicly given any timeline.

The salary has moved

Ingram started at $300,000 in 2015. His contract included performance bonuses heavily weighted toward metrics like coming in on budget — a structure that rewarded fiscal restraint in a department that, as Part 1 of this series argued, needed to be investing more aggressively.

Look at what UAB's conference peers are paying their athletic directors right now.

Rob Higgins at USF: $850,000 — $500,000 base plus $350,000 in supplemental compensation, with a $500,000 bonus if the Bulls navigate to a Power 4 conference. Jon Gilbert at East Carolina: $625,000, locked in through December 2029. Ed Scott at Memphis: $550,000 on a five-year deal, with a $250,000 bonus if the Tigers join the Big Ten, SEC, ACC or Big 12.

Those are UAB's conference peers. The programs that share a league compete for the same conference championships and recruit against each other for the same coaches and players.

Across the broader Group of 6 landscape, AD salaries generally range from $200,000 to $500,000, with outliers past $600,000. Jeramiah Dickey's deal at Boise State was $465,000 base with a total package between $3.2 million and $4.99 million over five years. The average FBS athletic director earns $134,409 in bonus compensation on top of base salary.

And even paying up doesn't guarantee you keep them. Louisiana's Dr. Bryan Maggard saw his compensation grow to approximately $470,000 — and the Power 4 still pulled him back to Missouri, where he had previously served for years, as a deputy AD. The Power 4 can pluck virtually anyone it wants from the Group of 6, and increasingly, even the No. 2 and No. 3 jobs at Power 4 schools can outbid a Group of 6 AD chair.

What that means for UAB — and for the fan base evaluating this search — is that the next AD is far more likely to be someone on the way up than someone stepping down. An ambitious executive climbing the NCAA division ladder who sees Birmingham as the place to prove it. If UAB does land someone moving down the financial pecking order, there will almost certainly be a compelling reason beyond dollars — a personal connection, a homecoming, a belief in the specific opportunity. Straight economics will not pull a top Power 4 executive downward. Something else has to.

The AD factory vs. the new job

The athletic director pipeline in American college sports has spent decades producing the same profile: fundraiser, facilities builder, multimedia rights negotiator. Rise through development at a Power 4 school. Learn to manage a capital campaign. Learn to close a naming rights deal. Land the big chair at a smaller school. Build buildings. Sell sponsorships. Repeat.

That pipeline produced Mark Ingram. And in 2015, that profile was the right type of hire for UAB.

The 2026 job description bears almost no resemblance to the one Ingram accepted. Part 1 covered the House v. NCAA settlement and what it means for Group of 6 economics — the same obligation to share revenue with athletes, significantly less revenue to share. The AD who walks into UAB in 2026 thinking the job is facilities and multimedia rights deals is solving yesterday's problem. The revenue engine that funds player compensation in the post-House era — that does not exist yet at UAB. Building it is a huge part of the job.

One of UAB's conference rivals understood this and acted on it.

On September 9, 2025, the University of South Florida announced the selection of Rob Higgins as the university's first-ever CEO of Athletics. Not athletic director — CEO of Athletics. Higgins did not come from the AD pipeline. He had spent 21 years as executive director of the Tampa Bay Sports Commission, positioning the region as one of the premier sports destinations in the country — two Super Bowls, a College Football Playoff National Championship and a long list of NCAA championships and marquee events. He was a former USF Athletics staff member and the first USF alum to lead the department.

USF Board of Trustees Chair Will Weatherford framed the hire in terms that every member of UAB's search committee should read carefully: "As we embarked on this search, it became clear that this moment was different for the University of South Florida. Our next leader couldn't just be an athletics director — we needed a CEO of USF Athletics. In this new era of college athletics, not only is the role about providing a top-tier experience for our student-athletes across all sports, it now requires a business approach to build a competitive enterprise, grow revenue, embrace innovation, lead through change and position our university — and the Tampa Bay region — on the national stage."

Build a competitive enterprise. Grow revenue. Embrace innovation. Lead through change. That is the job description for the next era of college athletics administration. USF recognized it and hired accordingly — from outside the AD factory, at $850,000 annually, with a $500,000 bonus tied to Power 4 conference navigation.

UAB competes against USF for conference championships. The question is whether UAB's search committee sees the same moment USF's board saw — and responds with the same ambition.

The realistic candidate pools

Given the salary landscape, the shifting job description and the economics separating the Power 4 from the Group of 6, the search committee is likely looking at seven distinct types of candidates. The rest of this series will examine each in depth.

The fan favorites. The names already circulating on message boards and social media. Some are realistic. Some are not. All of them deserve an honest evaluation — which is where Part 3 picks up. Think Kennedy. Bill Clark. Brad Hardekopf.

The Power 4 reach. The big-name executive from a big school — the hire that would light up a press conference. The economics of the Power 4-to-Group of 6 gap make this increasingly difficult. If it happens, there will be a trigger beyond money — a personal connection, an emotional pull, a belief in the specific opportunity. The dollars alone will not get it done.

The UAB or Birmingham connection. Candidates inside college athletics who have ties to the program or the market. They know the donors. They know the institutional culture. They know Birmingham. That familiarity collapses the learning curve and adds an emotional stake that pure outsiders lack.

The rising executive. Young, climbing fast through Power 4 or Group of 6 ranks, looking for the first AD chair. UAB is the launchpad — the place to prove they can run a department and build a resume that leads to the next job. The economics work in UAB's favor here. The job is the draw, not the paycheck.

The proven operator. Already running a department at a Conference USA, Sun Belt, MAC or FCS school. The American is a step up. UAB's market size, institutional backing and conference affiliation represent a genuine upgrade over their current situation. These candidates already know how to manage a department. The question is whether they can scale.

The mid-major basketball AD. A high-caliber athletic director at a strong basketball program that does not have football — a Gonzaga, a Creighton, a Xavier, a Saint Louis. They have proven they can run a department and compete at a high level in the sport UAB was built on. UAB gives them what their current school cannot: football. That experience is the resume gap between where they are and a Power 4 job. UAB becomes the career bridge.

The outsider. The Higgins model. Someone from outside the traditional AD pipeline entirely — sports business, civic leadership, media, corporate. Birmingham has people in those worlds with deep connections to UAB and the market. The AD factory has spent decades producing the same profile. The question is whether UAB's search committee is willing to look beyond it and to someone like, oh, former UAB football player Walt Maddox, the mayor of Tuscaloosa and former candidate for governor.

The rest of this series takes each of these pools and puts real names and real evaluations behind them.

Next: Part 3 — The obvious names. The candidates UAB fans are already discussing — who they are, what's realistic and what isn't.