Indy lawyer to be next athletics director

Indianapolis attorney Fred Glass will replace Rick Greenspan as IU’s director of athletics, a source told the Indiana Daily Student on Monday night.

The official announcement will be made at a press conference, which will take place at 10:15 a.m. today in the Virgil T. DeVault Alumni Center, across the street from Assembly Hall. The selection ends a three-month search for Greenspan’s successor.

Glass, an IU alumnus, is a partner at Baker & Daniels, an Indianapolis-based law firm.

Glass has no administrative experience in college athletics, but he has worked with the NCAA and the Big Ten in organizing tournaments in Indianapolis. During the 2006 Final Four, which took place at the RCA Dome, Glass worked as an executive for the local organizing committee and was co-chair of the 2006 Big Ten Tournament local organizing committee.

He is currently working with Indianapolis’ local organizing committee for the Big Ten Tournament until 2012, though it is unclear if that will change with his new position.

In recent years, Glass has been one of the most influential individuals in central Indiana sports.

From 2000 to 2007, Glass served as president of the Marion County Capital Improvement Board of Managers, which owns and operates Conseco Fieldhouse, the RCA Dome, Victory Field and, now, Lucas Oil Stadium – a project he helped develop.

Glass was the president of Indianapolis’ failed 2011 Super Bowl bid, though he did not serve on the city’s successful 2012 bid.

Outside of athletics, he sits on the Dean’s Advisory Board for IU’s College of Arts and Sciences.

He was chief of staff for Evan Bayh during the senator’s last two and a half years as Indiana governor. He was also state chairman for the Clinton/Gore 1996 presidential campaign.

IU’s decision to hire an athletics director without administrative experience is not unprecedented. Notre Dame hired Jack Swarbrick in July to fill its vacant position. Like Glass, Swarbrick was a lawyer for Baker & Daniels in Indianapolis.

Glass will head an athletics department recently marred by NCAA scandal.

Greenspan announced his resignation in late June after the NCAA alleged the University failed to monitor the men’s basketball program’s recruiting practices. That allegation followed five other major violation charges, though one was reduced to secondary.

Greenspan was the second high-profile Hoosier to resign because of the violations; former IU men’s basketball coach Kelvin Sampson resigned in February for his role in the scandal.

The NCAA has yet to rule on IU’s cases.

But Glass also inherits a program that is expanding. Under Greenspan, the department of athletics has undertaken capital projects in excess of $50 million – a renovation of Memorial Stadium and the construction of a new basketball practice facility.

Unlike his predecessor, Glass will not face a budget shortfall when he arrives on campus. In his tenure, Greenspan has balanced an athletics department that, for nearly a decade, operated at a deficit. 

Greenspan announced in June he would step down at the end of the calendar year.