Bryan Blair reportedly hires ND’s Yulander Wells, Washington’s Charles Small
SU hired former ND Deputy Athletic Director Yulander Wells as chief operating officer and UW’s Charles Small as deputy athletic director. Jacob Halsema | Staff Photographer
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Syracuse has hired former Notre Dame deputy athletic director Yulander Wells as its chief operating officer, USA Today’s John Brice reported Thursday. Wells will also have oversight of SU football.
In addition, SU has also hired Washington’s Charles Small as its deputy athletic director, ESPN’s Pete Thamel reported Thursday. Small will also be the school’s chief strategy officer and will be the men’s basketball team’s sport administrator.
Wells and Small are the first major additions to incoming athletic director Bryan Blair’s staff.
Wells has spent the last three and a half years in South Bend, overseeing athletic and business strategy as well as working with the Fighting Irish’s men’s basketball program. One of the initiatives Wells worked on at ND was renewing the university’s exclusive apparel deal with Under Armour.
Before Notre Dame, Wells was the deputy director of athletics for external affairs at Harvard and held multiple athletic administration positions at USF and Florida.
Small has been in Seattle since August 2024 as the senior associate athletic director for sport administration at Washington. Before that, Small was the director of athletics at Valparaiso for two years. He also previously spent four years at Iowa State as its sport administrator for men’s basketball, a role he’ll hold at SU, among other responsibilities.
Small has also worked in intercollegiate athletics at Arkansas, New Orleans and Pittsburgh. He played college basketball with the Panthers, reaching four NCAA Tournaments and winning two Big East titles.
Blair will take over formally on July 1, but he’s already had his fingerprints on consequential SU athletics decisions since he was hired. He played a role in bringing in Gerry McNamara as the Orange’s men’s basketball head coach. McNamara, a national champion as a player at Syracuse, will be tasked with snapping SU’s five-year NCAA Tournament drought. Small will contribute to that effort, too.
Wells is slated to work more with the football team. The squad – led by Fran Brown – saw its record dip from 10-3 in Brown’s standout first season in 2025 to 3-9 in 2026.
