— By Bill Cornwell
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — By way of the school calendar, an eventful athletics year is coming to an end at Marshall University.
Among the highlights throughout the 2023-24 athletics season was the long-awaited opening of Jack Cook Field for Thundering Herd baseball and the run of the Marshall women’s basketball team to Sun Belt Conference regular season and conference championships and the program’s second NCAA Tournament bid. Marshall men’s soccer won the Sun Belt title last fall and the Herd football program qualified for another bowl game, losing in the Frisco Bowl to North Texas.
There were also head coaching changes to both basketball programs not long after each team’s season ended.
Women’s head coach Kim Caldwell parlayed her single year of success in Huntington into a prestigious hiring at Tennessee, while veteran Marshall men’s basketball coach Dan D’Antoni stepped down after the Herd finished 13-20 record and 7-11 in the Sun Belt in D’Antoni’s 10th season.
Caldwell was replaced by Juli Fulks, a Division III National Champion at Transylvania University. The men’s basketball program stayed in-house with its replacement in former associate head coach Cornelius Jackson.
A little more than two full years into his tenure in Huntington, Marshall Director of Athletics Christian Spears believes success breeds success, allowing Marshall to handle the basketball coaching changes.
“What Kim did in one year got a lot of folks interested,” Spears said. “I had who I wanted. I wanted Juli from the very beginning. That was my target, but Nos. 2 and 3, I needed to know that they would be in the mix. We zeroed in on the situation and found a way. We had some quick conversations — how soon can I see you and can you get here? We got it scheduled with folks and we ended up with a great person leading our program in Juli Fulks.”
Spears says he’s consistently monitoring the coaching landscape of college athletics.
“For about the last decade, agents have called me and said, ‘Hey Christian, this is who I think has a shot at a head coaching job. Will you do me a favor and meet with them?’”, Spears said. “There’s just a lot of different connections from that process that I’ve been very fortunate to have made over the decade — not just with the agents, but with the assistant coaches and the rising stars in our business.
“Being open to doing that has allowed for the list to expand. Then, if someone gives me a name, I always ask the people I’m working with, particularly the Sport Administrator, to give me your list. We do this independently and don’t share ideas. If we have the same names on our list, it validates that their network is saying something similar to my network.”
Name, image and likeness has turned collegiate athletics into a free-for-all as athletes transfer and many are in search of a more attractive NIL package. Spears says Marshall isn’t in a position to offer such attractive financial incentives, but he does believe in rewarding athletes who prove their loyalty to Marshall and it’s fanbase.
“A student-athlete or family who recognizes that there’s more to Marshall than the transaction is exactly the student-athlete and family that we want to invest in,” Spears said. “We still want to be competitive in the transactional space, so let’s go get the resources and let’s pick the student-athletes that understand that it’s more than just the resources, and let’s invest in them. That’s how we’re going to approach NIL. When our student-athletes become great, we are going to use it as a retention tool. This community cares about you and we’re going to invest that much more in you.”
Spears says Marshall is a brand recognized for past success, but must continue to establish and develop its identity based on the present.
“We’ve had decades of success, and our history is phenomenal, but we are also actively trying to elevate our brand to put us in new markets and to give ourselves better brand recognition,” Spears said. “I think we’ve done a really good job of that over 25 months and the financials bear that out. We have done better because we receive a revenue stream from Marshall’s name, image, likeness and that revenue stream has grown. That will only get better.”
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Marshall’s home-and-home football series with Army has been canceled by mutual consent of both institutions.
The news was first reported on FBSSchedules.com.
Marshall was scheduled to host the Black Knights in 2025 and to play at West Point in 2026.
The move comes as Army begins play in the American Athletic Conference in 2025 and must free itself from several previously-scheduled games to play AAC opponents.
Another planned series for MU football has been altered, as the Thundering Herd won’t be opening the 2025 season at Western Michigan. The Broncos still come to Huntington this season to take on Marshall in September.