M
ike Haynie didn’t need long to choose Syracuse’s next director of athletics. To make the first consequential decision of his tenure, all the then-chancellor-elect needed was half a day at the Westin Hotel attached to the Detroit Metropolitan Airport.
After virtual interviews, the now acting chancellor flew to meet Bryan Blair face-to-face. They never left the airport. The next day, the decision was made. Blair was announced as SU’s new director of athletics on March 19.
What Haynie saw in Detroit wasn’t tied to a single stop on Blair’s resume. It was the accumulation of them. Blair’s career in athletic administration has advanced in steady steps — at Rice, Washington State and Toledo — with each role expanding his scope and each stop forcing him to operate in a different version of the fluctuating college athletics landscape.
Haynie said Blair fit two major archetypes of athletic administrators. He understands the “old college athletics model” and how college athletics has professionalized recently. Blair is the “perfect combination” of the two types of leaders, Haynie said.
“The thing I found compelling about Bryan: he’s both,” Haynie told The Daily Orange. “The way he thinks about modern college athletics is like a CEO. It is an enterprise kind of focus, but at the same time, he has that experience of understanding how to build an athletic department that is efficient, effective, that puts resources to their best use.”
Blair took fundraising classes and sat in on tough conversations as the senior associate athletic director at Rice. He navigated the advent of name, image and likeness and had early conversations with a future NFL Draft No. 1 overall pick as the deputy athletic director and chief operating officer at Washington State. He revolutionized Toledo as its director of athletics with innovative ideas like end zone dunk tanks and a concert at the football stadium.
Syracuse is Blair’s next proving ground, where he’ll officially replace departing Director of Athletics John Wildhack on July 1.
“We want to wake this sleeping beast,” Blair said at his introduction on March 19. “We want to wake this thing up and take control of our destiny and make sure the world knows that Syracuse University is one of the top 10 brands in all of college athletics, and we’re here to stay.”
The Orange’s most notable teams have experienced mixed success in recent years. Fran Brown led the football team to an impressive 10-3 record in 2024, but it slipped to 3-9 in 2025. The men’s basketball team fired head coach Adrian Autry and hired Gerry McNamara — one of Blair’s first decisions — in hopes of snapping a five-year NCAA Tournament drought. Blair is eager to raise SU sports under its common venue, the JMA Wireless Dome.
Director of Athletics Bryan Blair (left) holds up a jersey alongside newly-hired Syracuse men’s basketball head coach Gerry McNamara. Blair said McNamara’s desire to win for the school, not just the men’s basketball team made him realize that the former SU guard had something special to bring to Syracuse Athletics. Zoe Xixis | Asst. Photo Editor
Before he was an Atlantic Coast Conference athletic director, Blair operated out of a corner office at Rice. As a senior associate athletic director from 2014-18, he roamed the halls and interacted with athletic department officials, former Rice Athletic Director Joe Karlgaard said.
It was apparent to Karlgaard that Blair eventually wanted to be an athletic director because of his curiosity about how Karlgaard made decisions at the head of the department. Blair wanted to be in the room for key decisions about the football team, from head coaching changes to travel logistics.
Blair wasn’t afraid to speak up in those meetings. When Rice was left out of conference realignment in 2015, he floated the idea of the school going independent for football but joining a conference for the rest of its sports. It set Karlgaard back on his heels, he said. No one else in the 10-person senior staff meeting had thought of that.
“We kicked around the idea for a month or two and looked at it and ultimately we went in a different direction,” Karlgaard said. “But that was the sort of thinking that we needed at the time. And it took Bryan to open up our minds and start thinking about that whole process differently.”
Blair took fundraising classes in Rice’s Glasscock School of Continuing Studies. Karlgaard also said this helped Blair develop an understanding of where college athletics was in the past, where it is now and where it’s headed.
Blair’s fundraising chops — along with some of his smoked pork chops and other smoked meats from his barbecuing hobby — were put to use when he joined Washington State. He built his own smoker and served up food to WSU staff and donors as the deputy athletic director and chief operating officer in 2018 and later at Toledo. Just look at his BBQ Instagram, @triplebsq.
Then-Washington State Director of Athletics Pat Chun said Blair’s law degree from South Carolina was also integral in running the day-to-day operations of the athletic department. He managed the Cougars’ Nike partnership, which Chun described as an example of Blair’s relationship-building acumen.
NIL was established in 2021, when Blair was in Pullman, Washington. Chun said Blair’s time interning with the NCAA from 2010-11 allowed him to be “always firm on where the road was headed” in college sports.
Blair and Chun first discussed NIL with quarterback Cam Ward and his family when Ward was considering transferring to WSU ahead of the 2022 season. Chun deflects credit to Washington State’s coaches and players for ultimately bringing in Ward — the 2025 NFL Draft’s No. 1 Pick — but said Blair was “an important voice for Washington State” when NIL arrived.
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One of Blair’s first responsibilities at Syracuse was hiring a men’s basketball coach, and he settled on McNamara. Blair had similar experience and success in Pullman, helping hire Kyle Smith, who led the Cougars to their first NCAA Tournament in 16 years in 2024.
Both Chun and Toledo Deputy Athletic Director Nicole Harris said Blair does his research to find the right kind of “profile” for a coach, and then finds a coach who fits the program.
“He is going to do his due diligence in order to make sure that he finds the right person and the right person is gonna be a person of character and integrity, first and foremost,” Harris said. “And then they’re gonna be a phenomenal coach, whether it’s basketball, football, swim, golf, whatever the sport is.”
When Blair first became Toledo’s athletic director in 2022, his ideas sounded ridiculous. A dunk tank in the end zone. A Barstool Sports pregame show. A concert inside the football stadium. A team store turned into a creative studio.
“Let’s try it,” Harris recalled Blair frequently saying. “If it works, great. If it doesn’t, we pivot.”
The end zone dunk tank stayed — even in freezing temperatures — becoming a signature of a football team that went 36-18 during his tenure. That was Blair’s imprint. He encouraged ideas from everywhere, pushing staff to think beyond their roles and embrace risk in a rapidly changing industry, said Al Tomlinson, former Deputy Athletic Director at Toledo with Blair.
“One thing about Bryan is he wanted input from everyone,” Tomlinson said. “He’s a ‘measure twice, cut once’ leader. Very intentional about gathering feedback. But once we made a decision, we were aligned.”
Blair’s biggest project was a strategic five-year plan to enhance Toledo athletics called “Rise Together,” launched in 2022.
Under that plan, Blair helped launch the first NIL collective — an independent organization, usually formed by university supporters, alumni or boosters, that pools funds to create payment opportunities for college athletes — in the Mid-American Conference.
The collective, called Friends of Rocky for the Rockets’ mascot, changed the school’s ability to recruit and retain athletes, Harris said. Future NFL Draft first-round pick Quinyon Mitchell opted to stay at Toledo for four years due to the collective, Harris said. So did projected 2026 NFL Draft first-round pick Emmanuel McNeil-Warren.
“He has a unique ability to see around the corner,” Tomlinson said of Blair. “The NIL collective is a good example.”
“When you’re around him, you feel like you’re getting insight into the future of college athletics,” Tomlinson added. “He’s extremely informed and constantly thinking ahead. It challenges you to be better prepared and more thoughtful in your work.”
Tomlinson and Harris agree that Blair’s ability to build “authentic relationships” powers his success. That relationship can be with boosters, who helped fund the NIL collective. Harris recalls Blair serving up his brisket and pulled pork at dinners with donors and colleagues.
But it can also be with coaches and recruits. He was known as “the closer,” Harris said. Coaches wanted Blair to seal a recruit’s commitment.
“His passion and his energy, you feel that in his presence, and you want to be around him,” Harris said.
Blair showed up around campus and town, and when people heard his message, they were hooked, Harris said. They wanted to “run through a wall,” she added, because Blair will motivate people and ease “any ounce of doubt.”
“If there was an event in town, Bryan was invited, and he was leaving an impact at that event,” Harris said. “Once one person heard him speak, the phone was ringing for him to continue to speak to others because his energy and his passion are extremely contagious.”
Zoe Xixis | Asst. Photo Editor
Blair had a mantra in all his staff meetings and interactions: “Give me the idea that will get me fired.” He didn’t care where it came from, Tomlinson said. So, Toledo hosted Barstool Sports at a football game in 2022. Even though Barstool was hit with a $250,000 fine, Blair kept innovating.
He brought the Zac Brown Band to headline the first major concert at Toledo’s Glass Bowl in 31 years in May 2025, drawing more than 20,000 fans. In September 2025, he turned an unused “closet” in Toledo’s basketball venue, Savage Arena, into premium courtside seating in two months. In October 2024, he helped Toledo earn a $4 million gift from Marcia and Roy Armes, the second-largest gift in the university’s history.
“Under his exceptional leadership, we have seen groundbreaking facility enhancements, innovative technology integration and a philanthropic surge that has redefined what is possible for our institution,” University of Toledo president James Holloway wrote in a statement to The D.O.
Blair was endlessly competitive in whatever he did. Even when his own football career ended after four seasons at Wofford, Tomlinson remembers Blair coming into work with scratches on his arms and legs. The reason? He was playing pickleball for the first time the previous night.
At Toledo, Blair was hired as the youngest athletic director in the Football Bowl Subdivision. He leaves four years later having been a “change agent,” Harris said, with an NIL collective and significant fundraising and projects. It was the latest step, the latest reminder of being an “exceptional leader,” Harris said.
Now, his next stop is Syracuse, and Harris said he’s a proven winner in every aspect.
“His ability to take an organization, an athletic department from good to great,” Harris began, “I think you’re gonna see that there (at Syracuse), and you’re gonna flourish under his leadership.”
Photo by Avery Magee | Photo Editor
Published on April 23, 2026 at 12:54 am