Northwestern hired Villanova’s Mark Jackson as athletic director, the school announced Thursday. Jackson replaces Derrick Gragg, who the school reassigned to an advisory role in June.
Jackson has led Villanova’s athletics department since 2015, during which the Wildcats won two national championships in men’s basketball. Earlier in his career, Jackson served as Pete Carroll’s director of football operations at USC and worked with Lane Kiffin at the Oakland Raiders before becoming a senior associate athletics director at USC.
Multiple outlets reported Northwestern’s other finalists were Pittsburgh AD Heather Lyke and former Washington Commanders president Jason Wright, a former Northwestern player.
Jackson, who brings extensive experience in fundraising, comes to Northwestern at a critical time as the Big Ten school attempts to navigate the coming revenue-sharing era in college athletics. It is also currently in the midst of an $800 million rebuild of its football stadium, Ryan Field.
Two people briefed on the decision to reassign Gragg told The Athletic in June he was “tactfully shifted aside,” as one put it, following a scandal-plagued three-year tenure. After initially suspending longtime football coach Pat Fitzgerald in July 2023 for two weeks following an investigation into hazing allegations within his program, the university reversed course and fired him once the details became public. Gragg was on vacation at the time and delivered the news to the team via Zoom. Fitzgerald has since filed a $130 million wrongful termination suit.
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Another scandal involved former baseball coach Jim Foster, whom Gragg hired from Army. The Chicago Tribune reported that a university investigation months earlier had substantiated allegations of “bullying and abusive behavior” by Foster, yet he had remained employed. Gragg fired him a few days after the public disclosure.
Northwestern has had extensive on-field and on-the-court success recently, with men’s basketball reaching back-to-back NCAA tournaments for the first time in program history and field hockey and women’s lacrosse reaching national title games. In football, David Braun, who took over as interim coach following Fitzgerald’s dismissal, was named permanent head coach after leading the Wildcats’ turnaround from 1-11 to 8-5 last season.
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(Photo of Mark Jackson (left) with former Villanova player Josh Hart (right): Eric Hartline / USA Today)
