[tps_title]JIM LIVENGOOD[/tps_title]
[tps_header]Arizona athletic director 1994-2009[/tps_header]
Jim Livengood
Jim Livengood deserves consideration alone for hiring Sean Miller as one of his final acts as athletic director in 2009. Critics will say he faltered by trying to court Tim Floyd first, but all’s well that ends well.
He also hired baseball coach Andy Lopez, an inductee to the Arizona Sports Hall of Fame this year.
More than those hires, Livengood continually operated Arizona’s $43 million budget in the black. He was a member of the Rose Bowl Management Committee, the NCAA Fellows program, and chair of the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Committee, of which he served five years.
He was honored with the Athletic Director of the Year Award from the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics in 2006 for Division I-A.
Livengood initiated Campaign Arizona, which raised more than $130 million for athletic facility improvements and endowments, including the revamped football facility at Arizona Stadium.
The Wildcats maintained a top-25 competitive record in the NACDA Directors’ Cup (formerly Sears Cup) under his watch, including high rankings of sixth in 1993-94, fourth in 1994-95, seventh in 1995-96, sixth in both 1996-97 and 1997-98 and ninth in 2001-02.
The critics again will point to Livengood’s hires of John Mackovic and Mike Stoops as detrimental to his image at Arizona. Stoops actually dug out Arizona football from the depths Mackovic placed the program. He just hit his plateau.
Those hires pale in comparison to all of the positive aspects Livengood brought to Arizona athletics.
