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Georgia Tech athletic director Mike Bobinski will be named to the same position at Purdue. Tech school president G.P. "Bud" Peterson confirmed the transition Tuesday morning in a news release.
"While I regret that Mike is leaving us, I appreciate his tremendous efforts the last three years to forge a unified, strategic direction for the Georgia Tech Athletic Association and to energize our coaches, student-athletes and fans,” Peterson said in a statement. “He has led with integrity, and we wish him the best.”
The release said that Bobinski will begin at Purdue later in August and that a search committee will be named to find his successor. For the search that produced Bobinski, Peterson convened a search committee that was led by Tech graduate and prominent donor Steve Zelnak.
Bobinski replaces Morgan Burke, who has been in his position for 24 years and announced his retirement in February of this year. Bobinski was hired as Tech’s athletic director in Jan. 2013, replacing Dan Radakovich. Perhaps the most notable event of his tenure was his decision to fire basketball coach Brian Gregory and hire coach Josh Pastner in April and May of this year.
Credit: Ken Sugiura
Credit: Ken Sugiura
He also oversaw the compilation of a strategic plan for the athletic department, a guiding document with a mission statement and objectives that was completed in June.
Bobinski’s last appearance before media was on Tuesday at the football team’s media day. As might be expected, Bobinski gave no indication of a planned departure, as he spoke with optimism about the football season and gave updates on various department matters.
For Bobinski, the move brings him back to the Midwest, where he has extensive roots. He is a Notre Dame graduate (1979) and got his start in athletics administration there in 1984. He was athletic director at Akron and then Xavier, where he worked from 1998 to 2013 including a short turn as vice president for development.
At Tech, the athletic department continued to make gains in academic performance. In April, four teams were honored for having NCAA-measured academic progress rate scores in the top 10 percent of their respective sports, football, golf, men’s swimming and volleyball. Twelve of the school’s 15 teams posted APR scores that were better or identical than the previous year.
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