Greenspan to Take Over Rice University Athletics

HOUSTON - NCAA sources told FOX 26 Sports on Thursday that former Indiana University athletics director Rick Greenspan will be named the next athletics director at Rice University.

Sources with knowledge of the process told FOX 26 that Rice's official announcement could come as early as Friday.

B.J. Almond, director of news and media relations for Rice, said there will be a news conference on Friday where school officials will announce the new athletics director. He did not confirm the hiring of Greenspan.

Greenspan was the athletics director at Indiana from 2004 until 2008.

According to the Indiana school website, Greenspan organized and led the first comprehensive capital campaign program in the history of IU athletics.

The school also said in its biographical background on Greenspan that he led the charge in building a multi-million dollar facility enhancement project which included a new end zone facility for the football stadium, a basketball development center, academic resource center and new baseball and softball stadiums.

Prior to his stint at Indiana, Greenspan was the athletics director at Army for six years.

At West Point, the design and construction of several major athletics facilities and updating of some of the older ones took place on Greenspan's watch.

Similar to his success in fundraising later at Indiana, Greenspan also engineered a 300 percent increase in Army's annual giving program.

Also at Army, Greenspan created a system of coaches' accountability and support programs.

Before taking over the athletics program at Army, Greenspan was the athletics director at Illinois State from 1993 until 1999.

Greenspan has also worked at Miami and the University of Calfiornia at Berkeley.

At Rice, Greenspan is replacing Chris Del Conte, who left in October 2009 for Texas Christian University.

During the interim period, David Sayler administrated Owls athletics as the school's acting athletics director and he was a candidate for the position on a permanent basis.