Christian Spears hasn’t been at Pitt an exceptionally long time, but he’s more than made his impact as deputy athletic director and chief operating officer in charge of football and men’s basketball.
Pitt will need to find a way to replace Spears now as he’s been named as the new athletic director at Marshall, Action Network’s Brett McMurphy reported.
Spears arrived at Pitt in 2017 and served as the deputy director of athletics for external affairs. His roles included oversight of revenue generation activities and fundraising, ticket operations, marketing, game presentation, broadcasts and video, licensing, merchandising, multimedia rights, strategic communication and media relations.
In working with the football and men’s basketball teams, Spears was a key figure in the day-to-day and long-term operation of both squads.
Spears previously served in the same position at Eastern Michigan, helping to lead one of the more productive periods in school history. With unprecedented fundraising efforts and strong involvement in the growth of EMU football, Spears was named the interim athletic director at EMU after now-Pitt AD Heather Lyke left for Pitt. Spears would follow Lyke to Pitt soon after.
Before arriving at EMU, Spears served as deputy athletic director at North Illinois, where he was the lead administrator for NIU’s football team and also served in the areas of academics, compliance, life skills, strength and conditioning, sport psychology, football operations and equipment.
Spears has also worked as the assistant athletic director at Southern Illinois, assistant athletic director for compliance at Harvard and assistant athletic director of marketing at Long Beach State.
While Marshall gains a quality leader of the athletic department, Pitt will now turn to the task of filling a deep void across the athletic department.
Congratulations on your selection and think fondly of Pitt.