Breaking: Indiana Athletic Director Fred Glass to Retire at End of School Year

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Indiana athletic director Fred Glass announced Monday that he is retiring at the end of this academic year.

“It’s time,” Glass said Monday morning in a release from the school. “It’s an all-in, all-consuming role, and I’ve loved it, but I’m ready to step back and do something that keeps me closer to home with more time with my granddaughters and the rest of my family.

"I’ll finish up the Bicentennial Year and give (Indiana) President (Michael) McRobbie enough time to select a great successor.”

McRobbie has high praise for the work Glass has done in the past 10 years.

“I want to congratulate Fred Glass — on behalf of Indiana University and personally — on a superb tenure as Indiana University’s Vice President and Director of Intercollegiate Athletics,'' McRobbie said. "He has done an outstanding job in all areas of his portfolio and IU is seeing levels of accomplishment academically and athletically by its student athletes that rank with the best it has ever achieved.

"His legacy will be one of strong and competitive athletics programs and teams that play by the rules, a pervasive commitment to compliance and integrity, a commitment to excellent academic performance, record fund-raising and magnificent new or renovated facilities. He is also widely respected as one of the best athletics directors in the Big Ten, and has represented IU nationally with the greatest distinction. I wish him the very best in the next phase of his career, already filled with many notable achievements.”

A lot of positives have happened under Glass' tenure in Bloomington.

“I feel like we’ve rebuilt IU Athletics both culturally and physically,” Glass said. “We have followed the rules. We are graduating our students at a record rate. Competitively, most of our programs are doing historically well, and the futures are bright for all of our sports.

"We are an athletic department nationally known for the holistic care and development of our students. We have had unprecedented success with fundraising and facility development. I thank all of the students, coaches, faculty, staff, donors, and fans who have made this such a wonderful experience for me, and especially President McRobbie for giving me this opportunity and being such an engaged and supportive leader.”

McRobbie said a committee will be formed soon and chaired by Bill Stephan, IU Vice President for Government Relations and Economic Engagement Bill Stephan, to search for Glass’ successor.

During Glass’s tenure, IU has had both academic and athletic success, but he will probably be most remembered for historic and much-needed investments in almost all of Indiana's facilities, including Simon Skojdt Assembly Hall and Memorial Stadium. He has been a relentless fund-raiser and established nationally recognized programs and policies for student development and welfare.

During his tenure, IU Athletics has set or tied records for its Graduation Success Rate seven consecutive years, with its most recent record of 91 percent representing a dramatic improvement over the 77 percent GSR score in 2011. Also during Glass’s tenure, IU Athletics has also set all-time records for Academic All-Big Ten honorees, Big Ten Distinguished Scholars, Academic Progress Rate, and teams with perfect single-year APR scores.

Glass also oversaw the creation of the 25,800-square-foot D. Ames Shuel Academic Center in Memorial Stadium and led an unprecedented review of the Department’s academic metrics, processes, and procedures, believed to be the first and only of its kind in intercollegiate athletics.

Since Glass arrived in 2009, 23 teams and 195 individuals have won conference championships, 45 students have been named Big Ten Player of the Year in their respective sports, 588 students have earned All-American honors (including a school record 91 in 2017-18), three students have been named Big Ten Athlete of the Year (before Glass’s arrival it had been 19 years since an IU athlete had won the award), 24 coaches have been named Conference Coach of the Year, five coaches have been named National Coach of the Year, and the department has produced a National Team Championship, as well as 28 individual National Champions.

Here are some other highlights:

Last year (2018-19) alone, four programs won Big Ten Championships (the most in 27 years);
IU won the Governor’s Cup, the all-sports competition with Purdue (which IU now leads 9-7-2 all-time);
Men’s soccer earned an NCAA-record 20th trip to the College Cup and won both the regular season and tournament Big Ten titles;
Men’s swimming and diving won its third straight Big Ten title (its first three-peat in 34 years) and placed third at NCAAs (marking first time in 44 years its had back-to-back top three finishes);
Women’s swimming and diving won the Big Ten title and earned a program-record fifth consecutive top-10 finish at NCAAs;
Baseball won the Big Ten regular season title for the third time in seven years and a sixth NCAA berth in the last seven years (both Big Ten bests) and head coach Jeff Mercer was named Big Ten Coach of the Year (the first Big Ten coach in 37 years to win the Conference Championship in his debut season);
Softball had two wins against top-10 teams for the first time ever and its own national ranking for the first time in 23 years;
Women’s basketball had it fourth consecutive 20-win season (a program record and only nine all-time);
Men’s basketball successfully recruited back-to-back Indiana Mr. Basketballs for the first time in 21 years;
Football secured its highest-rated recruiting class in school history, including the two highest rated individual recruits ever, a program record five 4-star recruits, and four of the six highest-rated recruits from Indiana;
Men’s and women’s indoor and outdoor track and field teams each finished first or second at those four Big Ten Championship meets for the first time in 34 years;
Men’s and women’s cross country, for the first time ever, each finished in the nation’s top 20 at NCAAs; and rowing qualified for a school-record sixth straight top 15 national finish.

Glass has led a much-needed, $250-million effort to renovate and expand IU’s aging athletic facilities, mostly importantly all without any use of tuition contribution, student fee, or taxpayer money.

With the openings this academic year of the Terry Tallen Indiana Football Complex, the Pfau Course at Indiana University, the Cross Country Course, and the Armstrong Stadium renovation, Glass will have completed the University’s ambitious Bicentennial Facilities Master Plan for IU Athletics which also included the Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall renovation, Mark Cuban Center for Sports Media and Technology, the Memorial Stadium South End Zone Excellence Academy, and Wilkinson Hall for volleyball and wrestling competitions.

Glass has been a prodigious fundraiser, leading the effort to set six all-time annual fundraising records in the last nine years, secure 17 of the 18 largest gifts in IU Athletics history, and raise more than triple the funds in one million dollar-plus gifts than in the entire rest of the history of IU Athletics. IU Athletics will soon meet its record-shattering $215 million goal for the University’s Bicentennial Capital Campaign (which isn’t over until July of next year).

"I have never been afraid to ask my friends for money,'' Glass said during the dedication of the new football locker room.