Longest tenured Athletic Director in sports, Joe Castiglione, is set to officially announce his retirement from his role with the Oklahoma Sooners.
It was news that may have felt like it was coming in the next couple of years, but still, it shocked a few as Castiglione will retire after 28 years in the top seat for all of Oklahoma athletics. Shortly after the announcement, Oklahoma President Joseph Harroz Jr. sent out an email to the OU community to address the news and announced who would lead the search to succeed Castiglione.
"This moment is not a farewell," Harroz Jr. wrote in a statement. "Joe will continue to serve as Athletics Director into the coming year and after that, he will assume the role of Emeritus Athletics Director, advising on the search for his replacement and ongoing athletics projects, as well as continuing in a fundraising capacity. A search for his replacement will be led by Randall Stephenson."
Back in December, Castiglione brought on Stephenson to serve as executive adviser to the president and athletic director. Stephenson is the former chairman of AT&T who also served on the policy board for the PGA Tour and as the 37th National President of the Boy Scouts of America. Stephenson, an Oklahoma City native, was set to help the Sooners with the upcoming revenue situation due to the House vs. NCAA class action lawsuit going into effect. After Jim Nagy was hired as the general manager in February, Stephenson was set to "provide day-to-day oversight of the general manager and head football coach."
SEC commissioner Greg Sankey, center, talks with OU President Joseph Harroz Jr., left, and OU athletic director Joe Castiglione (Photo: BRYAN TERRY/THE OKLAHOMAN, USA TODAY Sports)
"He will help guide us into restructuring our budget for this new world of college sports and into developing a football structure with elements similar to professional sports teams," Castiglione said at the time. "This includes building out a more expansive general manager function and developing a dynamic model that will allow OU football to become a national gold-standard around talent acquisition, portal management and player development."
Stephenson retired from his role at AT&T in January 2021 after beginning his career there in 1982. Stephenson received an accounting degree from the University of Central Oklahoma (UCO) before receiving his Master's in accounting from OU. Back in 2022, Stephenson and his wife Lenise pledged a $1 million gift to the Prentice Gautt Academic Center at the University of Oklahoma. The generous donation helped with funding Oklahoma Athletics' newly established Growing Resilient Innovative Thinkers (GRIT) program.
Now, Stephenson is tasked with hiring the replacement for Castiglione, who joined Oklahoma in 1998. In that span he oversaw a total of 26 national championships and 117 conference championships, added four additional Heisman trophies, and celebrated countless scoring records and winning streaks.
"From my seat as university president," Harroz continued in his statement "The role of an Athletics Director is about so much more than managing a university's athletics programs. An Athletics Director is at the helm of some of the most visible aspects of the university, championing our nation's ingrained culture of college athletics, instilling a championship mindset, mentoring coaches and students alike, and showcasing our university on a worldwide stage to the millions who watch and cheer for our Sooners. There's a reason Joe has been called the Best Athletics Director in the Country: Because no one has done it better."