Randy Spetman '76 to be new FSU AD

Spetman to be named FSU's AD

By Steve Ellis DEMOCRAT SENIOR WRITER



Florida State will try to fly among the elite athletic programs again under retired Col. Randy Spetman.

The Utah State athletic director who also held that position for nearly nine years at the United States Air Force Academy will be announced as Dave Hart's replacement during a Monday morning news conference.


Spetman, 55 and a graduate of the Air Force Academy, surfaced as the leading candidate out of a search coordinated between national consultant Chuck Neinas and FSU President T.K. Wetherell.

This was not Spetman's first try to become the head of an athletic department in this state. He was a candidate but passed over by South Florida in 2004, when he was pushed by Neinas as a candidate. Spetman, during that same spring, also did not get the same position at East Carolina University. He was later hired by Utah State.

Spetman explained to the FSU search commitee how he was passed by those two schools, a concern among some FSU fans as it became apparent Spetman would be FSU's next director.
"I actually thought I had the job (at USF) to find out that I did not get it," Spetman said. "One of the concerns was from the donor base down there that I was too recently out of the Air Force and I would run it like a military organization. And could I fundraise?

"I was actually verbally hired to be the athletics director (at ECU) from a new president who was not on campus yet," Spetman added. "When (he arrived) he found out that a donor, there again, was very concerned with my fundraising ability and they opted not to take the chance."
Fundraising is not a primary responsibility for FSU's director of athletics and Spetman, in the view of several committee members, dispelled concerns about his running FSU's program like a military organization.

"To work in athletics for many, many years and you look to those programs the you look up to, want to emulate and this is one of the premier ones," Spetman told the search committee last week. "This is a great opportunity for me in light of what I would want to be in life."

The son of a banker, farmer and World War II veteran, Spetman's edcuational resume includes an engineering degree from the Air Force Academy, where he played football after first being placed in the academy's preparatory school because the English score in his standard achievement test was low. There, Spetman said, he learned how to study and went on to start at defensive end and earn a master's degree in management and supervision from Central Michigan. He also earned a master's degree in national security strategy from the National War Academy.