Huard’s Reaction: WSU’s Pat Chun was hire UW ‘needed to make’
Mar 26, 2024, 1:38 PM | Updated: Mar 27, 2024, 1:11 pm
There’s been some major shakeup in college athletics in the Pacific Northwest with WSU athletic director Pat Chun being hired to run the UW Huskies’ athletic department.
UW Huskies hire Pat Chun as next athletic director from rival WSU
Chun, who was hired at WSU in 2018 after over five years as AD at Florida Atlantic, now goes from Pullman to Seattle and the other side of the Apple Cup rivalry.
“This is one of those times where I can feel the hundreds of Coug fans that I have,” said Brock Huard, a FOX college football analyst and host of Seattle Sports’ Brock and Salk, in an instant reaction video. “And I know the reaction. It’s visceral. It’s beyond even sports hate. It is a sense of frustration and throwing the hands up and ‘this is it.’ Maybe this is the last straw, and I totally get it.”
Huard, a former UW Huskies quarterback, stresses that college sports is “lost, it’s listless, it’s leadership-less,” and WSU and its fanbase are the ones most hurt in this situation.
Last week, Huard shot a video where he broke down what kind of hire UW needed to make with its next athletic director and his top three priorities for that job.
“I said it should be someone with a purple and gold background. And Pat Chun doesn’t have that, but he’s really close to it,” Huard said. “Some on the other side of the mountains would say sickeningly close to it. But he and (former UW AD) Jen Cohen were really, really tight and good friends and had a tremendous amount of respect (for each other).”
“Pat Chun knows the Pacific Northwest, he’s made his home in the Pacific Northwest,” Huard later added. “Pat Chun has sat in the seat over some incredibly difficult circumstances over at WSU. He’s hired some of the best people and he’s done more with less … than maybe any AD certainly west of the Rocky Mountains. He’s done a phenomenal job.”
Ultimately, Huard is a big fan of the hire for UW.
“For the University of Washington, he’s a tremendous hire. He’s not purple and gold, he’s crimson and grey in his background, but he is committing to making this place great,” Huard said. “… For the Huskies, from a professional and a business standpoint, this was the hire they needed to make as they move into the Big Ten in a guy who’s sat in the big seat and done an unbelievable job.”
Watch the full video at this link or at the top of this article.
