In the end, the lure of going home proved to be too much for Todd Stansbury.
Thursday, Georgia Tech announced that Stansbury has been hired as the university’s new athletic director. Stansbury won’t begin his new post until late November or early December.
Stansbury, who played his college football at Tech in the early eighties and served in an administrative role in his alma mater’s athletic department from 1988-95, will replace Mike Bobinski, who left last month for the same job at Purdue.
In June of 2015, Stansbury left UCF to become the athletic director at Oregon State. One year and three months later, the opportunity to return to the place “where I found who I was” was too much to turn down.
“I am honored and humbled to have the opportunity to return to Georgia Tech, a place that has played such a large role in my life and the place responsible for opening up a world to me that I didn’t even know existed,” Stansbury said in a statement. “I am thankful to President Peterson and the selection committee for providing me this opportunity.”
Stansbury becomes just the ninth athletic director in the university’s history, joining such luminaries such as John Heisman and Bobby Dodd.
Stansbury’s new job will prove costly, though, for either himself, his new employer or some combination of the two.Per contract w/ Oregon State, AD Todd Stansbury is responsible for buyout of nearly $2.15 million for leaving to take job at Georgia Tech.
— Steve Berkowitz (@ByBerkowitz) September 22, 2016