Auburn president hopes to announce new AD in January

AUBURN — Auburn President Steven Leath is hoping to announce a new athletic director by January.

In an interview with the Montgomery Advertiser on Monday evening, the first for the school’s president since being named to the office in March, Leath stressed patience while anticipating having the process completed in the next two months.

“We’re not trying to be fast. We’re trying to get it right," Leath said. "Nobody here at Auburn has hired an AD in over a decade, so we’ll need to be cautious and thoroughly vet all the candidates before making a decision of this magnitude.”

Auburn's hire will be the 15th person to hold the athletic director title in school history. 

Auburn announced earlier Monday its in-house search committee will be chaired by Gaines Lanier and include a member of the university’s board of trustees, a member of executive board at Tigers Unlimited and a former three-year football letterman at Auburn.

Lanier, one of the top contributors for Auburn athletics, is the chief executive officer of J. Smith Lanier & Co., which is one of the nation’s leading insurance brokerage, employee benefits and risk management consulting firms.

More:Auburn names 6-person committee to assist search firm on next AD hire

Former Auburn women’s golf coach Kim Evans, a five-time Southeastern Conference coach of the year, will serve as committee vice chair.

Other committee members are PGA Tour player and former Auburn star golfer Jason Dufner, former Auburn gymnast Adrienne “AJ” Lee, who holds a doctorate in higher education administration, finance professor Beverly Marshall and Quentin Riggins.

Riggins, a Montgomery native, was an All-SEC linebacker for Auburn in 1988-89 and is currently a senior vice president at the Alabama Power Company along with being a board of trustees member.

More:Seven potential candidates for Auburn's next athletic director

More:Auburn president promises to 'move fairly quickly' to find new AD

Current athletic director Jay Jacobs announced this month that he will step down on June 1, 2018, or sooner if his successor is in place. Jacobs has been in that position role for nearly 13 years.

Leath stressed Monday evening that any large decisions made regarding the athletic department would be consultations to produce “no surprises” between Jacobs, himself and the board of trustees until Jacobs' successor is named.

“Jay and I function very well and so he is the AD, he’s not the interim AD so I want to make clear the athletics department is still being run through him during this period,” Leath said. “We have no reason to be nervous about potential moves in athletics coming up whether they be personnel or facilities projects or anything of that nature.”

Leath also addressed his personal connection to Parker Executive Search in Atlanta, the search firm Auburn has retained to assist in the search, through specifically working with firm president Laurie Wilder during his time at Iowa State.

“I have a great working relationship with Laurie Wilder in the past, and when you look at proximity to our campus, their expertise and everything they bring, I really believe they can help us tremendously throughout this process,” Leath said.

Before arriving to Auburn, Leath was at Iowa State and was reportedly heavily involved with his athletic director Jamie Pollard and the Parker search firm in hiring Steve Prohm to replace Fred Hoiberg as Iowa State’s men’s basketball coach.