New AD finds ties with LSU no longer binding
COLLEGE STATION — Scott Woodward, a 1985 LSU graduate, visited Kyle Field when Texas A&M and the Tigers were mixing it up as non-conference rivals in the mid-to-late 1980s, and he walked away with memories lasting nearly 30 years.
“I was in awe of the yell leaders and the Corps of Cadets,” Woodward said Monday, when he was introduced as the Aggies’ new athletic director. “I could barely watch the game, because I was watching the fan interaction and the students and just the place and its traditions.
“Those are memories that stick in your head, and you don’t forget.”
Woodward, hired from the University of Washington, replaces Eric Hyman, who abruptly stepped down a week ago after nearly four years on the job. A&M joined the Southeastern Conference in 2012, and while LSU is A&M’s nearest league neighbor, the Aggies also consider the Tigers their biggest SEC rival.
Woodward fielded a question about how he intends to handle Thanksgiving week, when A&M and LSU play annually in football.
“Not only do you not have mixed emotions, you want to beat them worse,” Woodward said. “I’ve been gone 11 years (from LSU), and these folks — the coaches and student-athletes — become your children. You know when you watch your children compete, you pull for them harder than anything you do in life.”
Woodward, who was at LSU prior to his hire at Washington, was brought onboard at A&M
by university president Michael K. Young, who was UW’s president until about a year ago.
“Scott and I worked really closely together at the University of Washington,” Young said. “He was a part of my senior cabinet, as he will be here as well. In that context, I learned a number of things. One is the absolute integrity and reliability of this man.
“That I knew what I needed to know in terms of athletics. … I also came to deeply appreciate his wisdom and common sense. (Those) are rarer commodities in life than one might think.”
Woodward said while he values every sport, he understands where the money comes from in college athletics.
“My management style is I really have to pay attention to our two revenue sports: men’s basketball and football,” Woodward said. “I’ll be very involved in a positive, constructive way. In a collaborative way. I’m not a meddler or a micromanager.”
Woodward said he has crossed paths with fourth-year A&M football coach Kevin Sumlin only when Sumlin was at the University of Houston (2008-2011) and visited the Washington campus.
“I know him casually — I wouldn’t say intimately — and have a high regard for him,” Woodward said. “I look forward to sitting down and talking to him.”
Although Woodward arrived from the Pacific Northwest, he’s a native of Baton Rouge, La., and said his ancestral ties to this region run deep.
“My father’s side of the family were rednecks who were chasing lumber mills from eastern Texas to western Louisiana. They were back and forth,” Woodward said. “This is home. This is what it feels like for me.”
Young said Hyman deserves “enormous credit” for A&M’s smooth transition into the SEC nearly four years ago but added he and the now former athletic director began having serious discussions about the department’s future within the past couple of weeks.
“About directions I wanted to take the athletic program,” Young said, “and things I’d like to see us build on a great base he