Greenspan gets 4-year Contract at Rice

HOUSTON - Rice University officially announced the hiring of Rick Greenspan Friday as the Owls new athletics director.

The school did not announce terms of Greenspan's contract.

However, NCAA sources told FOX 26 Sports he agreed to a 4-year deal.

Greenspan replaces Chris Del Conte who left in October for TCU. Acting athletics director David Sayler had been running the Owls program since then.

Greenspan was most recently the athletics director at Indiana from 2004 to 2008.

"This is a great day," Greenspan said. "I mean this is a great day . This is, without a doubt, where I want to be and I want to end my career here. I just don't want to do it prematurely."

Greenspan laughed after he said that, but that is exactly what happened to him at Indiana

He stepped down as the Hoosiers athletics director after the Indiana basketball program was found to have violated NCAA rules. The infractions were committed by then-head coach Kelvin Sampson.

Sampson was a controversial hire because he joined Indiana from Oklahoma where his stint as head coach of the Sooners was also marred by NCAA violations.

College basketball sources had indicated Greenspan, one-time athletics director at Army, had taken the heat for the hire that was actually made by the Indiana president.

After looking into the matter Rice agreed.

"I won't get into the details because I never have, but the hire should never have been made," Greenspan said. "But to those who were involved in making that decision I hope they've learned what's important."

Rice president David Leebron said he is pleased with his school's efforts to make sure they knew all there was to know about their new athletics director.

"Nobody was going to get through our process if we had real doubts about their character and their performance," Leebron said.

"At the end of the day I think you (will find) this is not a man of satisfactory integrity, this is a man of great integrity, and that was very important to our decision."

Greenspan said one of the reasons he is glad to be at Rice is because they did "a very exhaustive review of my background.

"Hopefully, in the eyes of those that perhaps doubt some of those things, this will reassure them," Greenspan said.

Leebron said a big reason he chose Greenspan was his successful stint as athletics director at Army, a school that he said compares favorably to Rice in its goals for its athletes in the classroom and on the field.

The chairman of the school's search committee said Rice officials canvassed many people across many walks of life who were connected to Greenspan.

Included in that group is rock star John Mellencamp and his wife, Elaine Irwin-Mellencamp, an internationally known super-model.

"I talked to Elaine Mellencamp, just a wonderfully gracious woman, who just thinks the world of Rick," said Robin Forman, chairman of Rice's search committee. "(She) talked about before he came she didn't have much of an interest in Indiana athletics and in football in particular."

"He brought just an exciting spirit and a sense of community about football and it became something bigger and more welcoming and more inviting and now she's just an enthusiastic supporter of the whole enterprise."