Christian Spears has spent over two decades working in collegiate athletics, many of those years were in an assistant or deputy athletic director role. His is now set to lead a program for the first time. Spears was introduced to the Marshall University community Friday morning. His hiring was announced Monday and he will begin his role leading the Thundering Herd on March 14.
Spears comes to Huntington from Pittsburgh, where he has worked as the deputy athletic director of the Panthers since 2017.
“It has been an unbelievable journey. I have been doing this college athletics thing for 25 years. I have put myself in a position to be a college athletic director one time in my career and I recognized something and I withdrew from that process. I dug in with Heather [Lyke] and we built some amazing things the last eight years together,” Spears said.
“Then this opportunity came up and I found out and met [President] Brad [Smith]. It inspired me to want to be here and transform this place in a meaningful way with Brad. I have been waiting a long time and I have been super patient trying to find the right fit at the right place with the right people.”
While at Pittsburgh, Spears crossed paths with the Thundering Herd at the NCAA Men’s Soccer College Cup last May. The Panthers advanced to the semifinals on the opposite side of the bracket as the eventual champions from Marshall.
“I can tell you that when I was at the College Cup with Pitt this past year, there was a team there that played in the game before us that won a national title. I could have told you when I walked into that stadium that Marshall was going to win the national championship in soccer. The people that were there were so engaged.”
In his introductory press conference, Spears made several references to the word ‘Championship’.
“We are going to talk a lot about championship pace and we are going to figure that out together. There is something about a pace, a cadence, a rhythm. We don’t just start running. We have to figure out what has worked well here, what we have done well in the past. And that pace will start to evolve. I promise you that we will be running with the Herd quick.
“We are also going to have a championship process. There are people here, there are policies here, there are protocols here and there are precedents here. I need to learn them, know them and know what works.”
Spears enters an athletic department that is in transition from Conference USA to the Sun Belt Conference. The timeline for Marshall’s entry into the Sun Belt remains uncertain and the matter is in litigation.
“Once we are through that process, we will be able to understand how we are going to compete and the things we need to do to get ready to go for this fall. It is a quick turn. When you make a decision and you exit, let’s call it June 30th and July 1st, which is the way academic calendars work in college athletics, that July 1st date we are going to have to be all Sun Belt.
“We need to travel together. We need to go to these locations together. If we are going to establish the kind of program we want, people need to know when we show up to look out.”
Plans are in place for Marshall to build a new on-campus baseball stadium. But the project has been stalled.
“When you are playing a sport and you don’t have a facility, and you have been asked to compete, it is a very difficult thing to do.
“Each and every day from March 14th on, we are going to work to get that stadium figured out.”