With all the excitement of new Basketball milestones being set the hunt for UB’s next Director of Athletics has fallen somewhat off of our radar.
Kathy Twist has done an excellent job taking care of business while the powers that be went to work looking for Allen Greene’s replacement. She got Nate Oats under a new contract and managed the logistics of a department as it sent two teams to the NCAA tournament.
But the search committee was apparently looking for someone a little more traveled. And they landed on that someone in Memphis Deputy Athletic Director Mark Alnutt.
Alnutt landed in Memphis after being the Director of Athletics at Southeast Missouri State University for several years. He’s been at Memphis since 2015.
Already having some experience as a Division one Athletic director, Alnutt has had to deal with the oversight of an NCAA Division I athletic department. Under Alnutt’s leadership, Southeast Missouri’s student-athletes recorded a cumulative 3.15 grade point average during the 2014-15 academic year, in his final two years at SEMO the department GPA was above 3.1
One accomplishment during his time at SEMO was the “Redhawks Road Trip”.
The Redhawks Road Trip featured a series of outreach events to give fans, alumni, supporters and community members the chance to meet select coaches, student-athletes and administration from Southeast Athletics. Southeast coaches, student-athletes and staff made stops along the “I-55 Corridor,” stretching between St. Louis and Memphis. It was his attempt to promote the brand and increase donations to the department.
Alnutt was the driving force behind securing the first-ever NCAA football game at Busch Stadium in St. Louis. Longstanding regional-rivals Southeast Missouri and Southern Illinois met in the College Classic on Sept. 21, 2013.
During his tenure at SEMO the school saw a 58 percent increase in overall football ticket revenue during the 2013 and 2014 seasons. He also overaw an increase of more than 26 percent to the Redhawks Club and renegotiated a team apparel contract with Lids Team Sports resulting in a 40 percent annual increase to the school.