Graham Rossini can’t do anything about public perception right now, whether that perception is positive or negative.
Arizona State University’s new athletic director has received messages of support from many who believe he is ready for this role, including Diamondbacks president and CEO Derrick Hall, and former Sun Devils baseball coach Pat Murphy, who is now the Milwaukee Brewers manager.
Despite his deep ties to the school and community, Rossini also knows that there are skeptics within the department and within the alumni base. He knows that some view him as a continuation of what came before; an internal hire who will merely serve as a puppet for university president Michael Crow.
“In some ways, it just reinforces how I’ve always tried to work,” Rossini said. “Just build trust over attention and don’t seek out the limelight. Don’t get distracted by things that pull your attention away. Just really focus on the job at hand and the work that needs to get done and then look up when it’s time to look up and process it.”
After Rossini appeared on a wild edition of the PHNX Sun Devils show on Wednesday, I sat down with him for a wide-ranging and lengthy Q&A on his new role, his time with the Diamondbacks, the state of Sun Devil Nation, the transfer portal, NIL, facilities, his relationship with Michael Crow and much more.
Here is that interview in largely unfiltered Q&A form.
Did you ever imagine this opportunity when you graduated from ASU in 2002?
Rossini: “There were a few moments where I thought about it in my time in MLB, looking at the state of college sports and understanding that there was some untapped opportunity at that time. That was when the Pac-10 was becoming the Pac-12, and when it looked like Texas and Oklahoma might be coming west to the Pac-12. It was exciting to think about: Could the Pac-12 be the first super conference with all these great brands coming in with an established conference footprint? I remember paying attention to the landscape and thinking about the beauty of a collegiate athletic department that’s rooted in its community with generations of support from people who either went there or grew up around it or loved it from a young age.
“As I spent more time in Major League Baseball and just understood sports business at a deeper level, it was always in the back of my mind. I wondered how this would translate into an athletic department as college sports were starting to evolve and change. But not until the COVID season did I think this was even within the realm of an idea that my next move could be back into college athletics — but certainly not as an athletic director in the near term.
“The D-backs have such a well run organization. It’s so stable at the highest level. There just wasn’t a natural progression for me in that organization. I had open conversations with [team president] Derrick [Hall] about it. He was always very supportive of the idea. He said, ‘Sometimes you might need to step away to round out a skill set that maybe you can bring back one day.’ He said, ‘Hey, look, I’d love to keep you here for as long as possible, but I understand that with your aspirations, you may want to go find some experience to round out and elevate your contributions.'”
As a Sun Devil alumnus, what does this opportunity mean to you?
Rossini: “I watched “Jerry Maguire” a couple of weeks before the announcement when I started to get the sense that this actually might be happening. I haven’t seen it in probably 15, 20 years. I just wanted to see how the university was represented, what Sun Devil Stadium looked like in the movie, and of course, Rod Tidwell and all that.
“The day that Dr. Crow asked me to accept the role, I remember going home that night and starting to process it all; all the history and relationships. I am a Sun Devil and I’m so proud of this connection to this university. To have the opportunity to play a leadership role in a place that I love and care about so deeply; I’m just grateful. To let it start to sink in that I’ve got the ability to impact something that I’ve not only benefited from, but that I also really, really care about is an honor.
“I’ve been two places in my career: ASU and the D-backs. I’m personally invested in each of them and that’s always been important to me is that whatever I do professionally, I want to feel like it fulfills me individually and that there’s a purpose and an impact behind the work that I get a chance to do. It was never about chasing a [job] title. It was never about leading an organization. It was about being aligned with the university or the organization that I was a part of, and I’ve been lucky to have that in both of my places.”
What did you take from your time working for the Diamondbacks and Derrick Hall?
Rossini: “Where Derrick has always excelled is in just being accessible and valuing feedback. I remember early on in my time there, just being amazed at how present he was as the leader of an organization. You’re running a Major League Baseball franchise. You have tremendous demands on your time from all aspects of the organization, but you’d be in a conversation with him and you felt like you were the only person that mattered to him. He was so present in that interaction and he was like that with everyone. He’s engaging with every single fan. If they write in with a question or some feedback or some commentary, he’s not hiding behind a ghost account or somebody responding for him. He’s taken on that responsibility.
“It’s his ability to connect with people and be so proud of representing the D-backs and being back in the Valley, and just seeing his enthusiasm for his work even though the days are long and it can be a grind. He used to joke, ‘I’m just trying to avoid getting a real job as long as I can.’ If you’re a part of something that you truly care about, you never feel like you’re working a day in your life. I think there’s an O’Malley family (Dodgers owners) influence for him in that sentiment that he’s been able to pass on to me. I want to do the same thing for ASU fans.”
What is on your immediate agenda?
Rossini: “We’ve thought a lot about just reconnecting with our fans in the marketplace. We have fans all over the nation, but really, how do we start with the Valley and Maricopa County and reconnect? There’s so many alums all around us. Maybe they’re aware of what’s happening. Maybe they’re not, but they’re Sun Devils and we have a chance to reconnect and use the full scale of ASU to benefit our student-athletes and put our institution in the best position to succeed athletically.
“We had a tennis clinic that Matt Hill, our head men’s tennis coach put on a few weeks ago. There was an ASU alum, she lives in Anthem, who found out about the clinic through I think a Facebook group and got back to the Whiteman Tennis Center in Tempe. She had not been on the campus in maybe 20 years and was blown away at what has happened at ASU.
“She ended up wanting to plug back into our university because a tennis coach made an effort to connect. It was an eye-opener that our sports are such great connection tools for people that move to the Valley, but they’re also a great reconnection tool for people who are ASU alums, or were ASU supporters and are trying to find their way back in through sport.
“That’s the benefit of having 26 sports across beach volleyball and lacrosse, golf and tennis and everything that we do. We’re an active community. People are coming here with different influences from all over the country. Our portfolio of sports is a great way to bring people back into the fold and understand what’s happening at ASU. Much like me, hopefully they will be more proud of their degree than they were as a student or as a young graduate because the profile of ASU just continues to explode when you look at everything that we’ve accomplished under Dr. Crow’s leadership.”
There has been some criticism of your hiring, internally and externally. Some critics felt that ASU needed to clean house and get an outside perspective in this role. Their concern is that you will simply be an extension of Michael Crow, put in place to be a puppet. How would you respond to that?
Rossini: “I understand the perspective that I’m not a known, established athletic director, but I don’t know what that really means at this particular moment in collegiate athletics where it’s changing by the week, by the hour at this point.
“I’ll say this: I’m not interested in signing up for an opportunity where I take my entire marching orders from others. Dr. Crow and I had what I thought were really healthy and honest conversations throughout the process. I didn’t know if I was one of many candidates. I just remember early on, having a conversation with him where he said, ‘Hey, you are very much under consideration for this role. We don’t know what the process will be yet. We’re going to ask you to focus on the job that needs to be done and staying close to Jim Rund as the interim AD and learning as much about ASU as you can the process.
“I never thought twice about what an interview would be like or what the search firms were going to ask, or who the candidates were going to be. It was just more about, how do I stay present in that process and learn everything I can about ASU that I didn’t know already? How do I understand the direction of where college sports is going and how ASU needs to be positioned? How do we start to get really relevant in NIL and building out support.
“In response to the idea that I am taking marching orders or I am Dr. Crow’s puppet, he told me, ‘I want you to be the executive of Sun Devil Athletics. I want you to lead this department to all the heights that are attainable for a Power 4 intercollegiate athletic department. I want to put the full strength of ASU behind you in that effort to lead Sun Devil Athletics. I’ve never considered that stance an impediment or a red flag. I’ve only seen that as an incredible commitment to Sun Devils Athletics from a president of a university that’s willing to open any door he can on behalf of athletics. He very much sees the value in how an athletic department can enhance the brand and the profile and the access that the university has in a community.”
(Photo courtesy of Sun Devil Athletics)
Some have questioned Michael Crow’s commitment to doing what it takes to succeed in the new world of college athletics. What’s your read?
Rossini: “He is a passionate competitive person and he wants us to win at the highest level. He wants us to have success in football and men’s and women’s basketball and baseball. He’s been very specific about finding support and resources to allow those four sports to have the greatest amount of success, independent of the transfer portal, independent of NIL, independent of the sports going south and east, as seems to be a theme.
“He is committed to success in football and basketball. I’m not sure what has happened along the way where people don’t get that sense from him. The university made the investment into Sun Devil Stadium. They put the dollars up to totally transform this incredible football stadium.
“At the same time, there were some really important donors that are still plugged in and very connected. The combination of key donors who wanted to support a mission and a university that was successful enough to make a direct investment into its athletic facilities — I don’t think we talk about that enough.
“A lot of people talk about Desert Financial Arena, and I’m the first one to admit that we can have a better fan experience there, but adding Weatherup Center in the late 2000s was a game changer. To this day, it’s one of the best basketball practice facilities. They spend 90 percent of their time at Weatherup Center. NBA teams use it when they come through town. That is our competitive advantage on a day-to-day level. Mullett Arena is a tremendous facility for many of our sports and an unbelievable outcome for ASU. That’s the direct byproduct of a president committed to an athletic department, in my opinion.”
The college landscape has changed dramatically in the past five years with NIL and more lenient transfer rules. Let’s start with the transfer portal: What’s your view on its impact?
Rossini: “The portal works both ways. You may may lose athletes along the way because it wasn’t a fit for whatever reasons. I understand why that’s important and all the aspects of it, but we certainly are open-minded to how the transfer portal can benefit our programs, particularly in a state like Arizona where there’s so much talent and the high schools keep getting better and better, year in and year out. Every one of our sports can build a roster with Arizona kids.
“If they go elsewhere, if they want to try a different part of the country, if they’re promised playing time or NIL outcomes and it doesn’t work out, we want them to understand that there’s a great opportunity for them to come back to ASU. What [football] coach [Kenny] Dillingham and our other coaches have done a really excellent job of is building a relationship and rapport throughout the recruiting process. Kids may pick another school for whatever reason. That doesn’t mean that the relationship ends. How you handle that moment I think becomes very important in keeping open an opportunity to get somebody back at their second school. Let’s leave the door open if there’s ever a reason that they may want to come back home.
“We’re seeing a lot of that certainly in basketball and football, where kids go to other schools and it wasn’t what they were hoping or seeking for whatever reason. They know there was a connection with Coach Dillingham or Coach Hurley or Coach Adair or Coach Bloomquist. So they circle back. If I’m in the portal and understand ASU could be an option, you get the benefit of the head start in that situation. I think the transfer portal is enormously beneficial there.
“I do think there’s a time where the duration of the windows and the number of portal windows will be discussed with regard to how do we make this a manageable environment for our coaches? They have tremendous demands on their time. It’s hard for them to be a spouse and a parent and still navigate the day-to-day grind. You’re always recruiting. You’re always coaching. The portal just adds to that. I’m hopeful that we can make the portal effective as a tool for student-athletes, but also make it manageable for everybody on the other end of it.”
What is your feeling about NIL and how ASU must approach it?
Rossini: “I understand the reasons for the creation of name, image and likeness and I totally agree with the idea that these are student-athletes who have limitations on their time and energy in a way that nobody else does in a student setting or even in a professional setting. I’m highly supportive of NILs as a tool for student-athletes to utilize at this moment in time.
“The one benefit of a class-action settlement is you start to get structure and guardrails. As we move forward post settlement, there will be fair market value; there will be the burden of proof on a contracting party entering into NIL of saying, ‘If we’re compensating you for your name, image and likeness, there’s an expectation that you perform whatever series of responsibilities that come with that investment.’ So it becomes much more of a traditional endorsement in that way. It’s less about recruiting inducement. It’s less about pay for play. It’s more about utilizing your name, image and likeness to promote a product or service that you are aligned with as a young person who happens to be a student-athlete.
“At a place like ASU where we’re in this incredible marketplace with emerging economies all around us, companies setting up headquarters in the Valley, a spirit of entrepreneurship that happens all around us where people are creating brands and launching companies in our backyard, NIL is a tremendous connection tool for all these companies to use student-athletes as a way to build awareness in the market, build connections, and establish credibility as a company or brand.
“That’s a natural advantage for us in the Valley. We have this economic engine all around us that’s available to us. ASU is probably connected in a lot of these circles through alumni-led businesses, or a research effort or a university relationship that ties into it. So moving forward, I’m really excited about our ability to have continued success in NIL. The universities that have scale, relationships, corporate connections, and awareness on how to plug into the space are the ones that are going to have success, in my opinion. We are all of those things.”
ASU has a massive alumni base: Why has getting Sun Devil alumni to donate been such a challenge in the past, and how do you change that?
Rossini: “We are very much focused on igniting our fan base in all aspects, and where we’re putting a lot of our focus is consistency in communication and making an effort to connect. We want to share our success stories. We’ve got about 650 athletes that are probably the best player from their town or community. They’re high achievers. They’ve overcome adversity. They are experts at their sport and their crafts. There’s some incredible stories for us to showcase and really build out our ability as a storyteller and share beyond just the outcome.
“Here are the reasons that somebody chose to come to ASU and represent their sport and compete at the highest level. We can do a lot better job storytelling and creating content. One of the benefits of the Big 12, in my opinion, is that we get the benefit of Fox and ESPN for game distribution. Our most important events are on the biggest channels through Fox and ESPN. We’re not dealing with a conference network. We’re not dealing with limitations on how we distribute content. It’s there for the masses through Fox and ESPN.
“We also now have the ability to create content within the athletic department that we can share. We can share it on YouTube. We can share it on our website. We can share it on our social media. How do we do more with our coaches shows and let people understand the personalities behind the head coach? How do we bring in behind-the-scenes docuseries, historical tribute shows and just story tell about the great history of ASU, the great personalities that are involved with ASU, just bring people in through a human connection and understanding the people behind the jersey or behind a clipboard?
“Just sharing good news is really the big focus. How do we get people excited about all the good things happening at ASU and let them decide their way to plug in? As we get better at marketing our products we’ll help people understand that we are an athletic department; we are not 26 sports that wear the same uniform and operate independently of one another.
“How do we cross promote so that when you’re at football, you understand the basketball season is right around the corner? And when you’re at a basketball game, we’ve got hockey going on across the parking lot. And don’t forget about baseball and softball in the spring and that we’re really good at golf and tennis and that we’ve got Olympians in Paris through our swimming and diving program.”
When I spoke to Bobby Hurley last week, he expressed an altered perspective on NIL. Have you sensed a similar shift from Michael Crow?
Rossini: “Absolutely. In a conversation a month ago with Dr. Crowe, he said, ‘Let’s look at every corporation that touches ASU and make sure we can educate them on what NIL means and how they can plug in.’ They have great investment into the university. They’re focused on research and they’re focused on output. They like the ROI of a connection to a university. But NIL becomes a separator so he’s had very focused conversations on how we use the full corporate network of ASU in these NIL conversations.
“At the end of the day, a university in my opinion, is a talent development organization. Independent of anything we’re here to do, we’re here to prepare young people. We have companies around us that need talent. We are a talent producer for the companies and the community that we serve. How do we make that connection? NIL is a great tool to build relationships with people that you might end up hiring. They do have these incredible attributes as an athlete where they are good communicators, they’re accountable, they’re disciplined, they manage their time, they’re hard working.
“Now you get a chance to help them understand your business and let them build a vocational skill set and a professional network that allows them to come out as a graduate that competed in a sport at a very high level; maybe even won a championship. They’re prepared to enter the real world with subject-matter expertise, or some level of experience that benefits them.”
(Photo courtesy of Sun Devil Athletics)
Former AD Ray Anderson believed in creating more opportunities for student-athletes and that is reflected in the number of university sports ASU offers. Do you share that vision?
Rossini: “Yes. There has been no conversation that I’ve been a part of about adding sports, but we’re focused on continuing to resource the ones that we have at a high level. Realistically, we understand the market conditions are changing around college sports. As we work through the class-action settlement and what that means, we’re gonna have to look at how we spend our dollars differently moving forward.
“I guess the ultimate objective is to avoid eliminating sports. That’s not something that we’re interested or looking to do, but we need to make tough decisions that allow us to give all of our sports the best chance at success. Maintaining opportunities is really important, but it will be interesting going through the process where scholarship limits turn into roster caps. That really changes the dynamic a little bit in terms of how a sport-by-sport level constructs a roster.
“Some sports may have more ability to invest in student-athletes. Some sports will come down in a way to balance that out. We need to be close to the information over the next five or six months as we navigate what’s coming as soon as the fall of 2025 when a lot of these changes could get instituted. I will say this: I’m a big believer that the best chance to have success in 26 sports is for football and men’s basketball to have success.”
Following up on that, will there be more emphasis on the revenue generating sports? Can the two ideologies co-exist?
Rossini: “That’s been a conversation that we’ve had in many circles of the university. Our best energy and our best ideas are focused on football, men’s and women’s basketball, and baseball — making sure that through those four, we can create resources and support that allow us to have success.”
Is hockey included in the revenue generating category?
Rossini: “Hockey has a tremendous upside. We have a wildly successful program and we know that there’s a lot more opportunity for hockey fans in the Valley in a world where, hopefully only temporarily, the Coyotes aren’t here. We want to fly the hockey flag. I haven’t seen everything but from what I have seen, there’s not a better experience in college hockey than what we have at Mullett Arena.
“The Novus Innovation corridor is critically important for us around Mullett Arena. There’s four more restaurants that are going to open up this fall — Fox restaurant concepts and some well-known concepts in the Valley — that will be part of this Novus Innovation district. Having Mullett Arena front and center in an innovation corridor where the proceeds of that effort will benefit our athletic department makes hockey critically important to us.”
Are you dead set on renovation of Desert Financial Arena rather than a new facility for basketball?
Rossini: “Our most likely scenario is continuing to look at improvements to Desert Financial Arena. The cost of a new arena is exorbitant at this point, but I also believe that there’s a really unique story behind Desert Financial and there’s some really good attributes that we can bring back out. Maybe it’s my baseball background, but if somebody can take Fenway Park and Wrigley Field and renovate those two ballparks into what they are now, I think there’s more that we can get out of Desert Financial Arena.
“It’s got a kind of a charm to it. When it’s packed, it’s as loud as any facility in the country. There’s some great history, some great moments that have happened there. There’s really a great concert history to the building as well. So how do we celebrate the great moments in there? How do we collect some feedback from our fans on improvements that we’ll make moving forward? I don’t want to commit to timing right now, but we’re in daily conversations about what else we can do with the experience that Desert Financial Arena offers.”
Turning ASU athletic facilities into community assets and revenue generators was a big emphasis under Ray Anderson. Mullett Arena’s attached community rink is an example. Would you like to see that emphasis continued with other facilities?
Rossini: “That’s been a nomenclature that we’ve used for quite some time. We’re looking at track and tennis right now and how do we get those two relocated into the east athletic village so we can continue the build out of the Novus Innovation district, give our fans more things to enjoy on game day, let companies move in and be on campus and again, have more restaurants around our arena. I think it’s very important that we look at all of our facilities beyond just what they accomplish sport by sport. How do we use them as a connection tool for the ASU community more broadly?”
Do you hope to host more major events?
Rossini: “Yeah, and I think there’s a great opportunity to do that by going into the Big 12. There are certain championships that happen in neutral sites or well-known venues, and then there are those that kind of rotate throughout a university setting. In an expanded CFP [College Football Playoff], there’s an opportunity for us to play our way into a CFP game at Mountain America Stadium, which would be an unbelievable outcome for us. Any chance to illuminate ASU through sport, we’re very much focused on that.
“Whether that’s Big 12 championships or hosting NCAA events in the Valley, I think we’ve had a great track record in doing that as recently as the Final Four this year and we’ve got a women’s Final Four coming to Footprint Center in 2026. There’s gonna be opportunities in the NCHC (hockey) to host conference playoff games on campus. We’ve talked about getting back to a situation where we’ve got NCAA regionals in baseball and softball. There’s not a better way to showcase than when you bring people from different parts of the country to the ASU campuses to understand what’s happening here because of sport. We’re always open-minded to that, including, hopefully one day hosting a [NHL] Winter Classic.”
What challenges and opportunities does moving to the Big 12 present from a department perspective?
Rossini: “I don’t see any challenges. The travel has been scrutinized, but in comparison, it’s not much more travel than we’re used to in the Pac-12. It is more west to east than it is maybe south to north. But the miles that we’re traveling aren’t all that different. There’s four schools in Texas, then you get into Oklahoma and Kansas. Those are really manageable road trips for us and we’ve talked a lot in the conference about how we can regionalize the schedule in a way that’s appropriate. It may not be make sense for every sport to be on every campus over the course of their college experience and that’s okay.
“We are also looking at how we spend our travel dollars wisely. How do we focus on time away from campus? How do we focus on the student-athlete experience? But for ASU to have 16 schools across a national footprint with 90 million potential fans over the course of the Big 12, that’s a lot of people that get a chance to learn about ASU through sport, which is valuable to us.
“At the same time, being where we are in Phoenix still allows us to maintain that pipeline to the Pac-12 legacy schools. ASU has a vested interest in LA. We’ve got a brick and mortar presence there that’s very important. Our coaches want to continue to recruit Southern California, and there’s there’s really a lot of value in playing USC and UCLA and other schools throughout Southern California with consistency. While we were in the Pac-12, we didn’t have a lot of good non conference options around us. Now we’ve got regional schools that are a bus ride or a quick fight away that help us round out a schedule in a lot of our sports.
“I think we also recognize that ASU brings a lot into the Big 12 as an institution. We’re not in the shadows of a Stanford or a Cal or a USC. We really can lead by example in a lot of respects by joining the Big 12. One of the most enjoyable parts of the conversation with these other institutions is learning the things that they’re good at and what their fans care about and what the university is really passionate about solving.
“And then having them asking more about ASU and understanding the new American University or our efforts in Bermuda or Hawaii, or all the impact that ASU is having on a global scale. We’re able to help each other out through that process and really add value in some unique ways that we otherwise weren’t going to be able to do.”
What gets you most excited about this job?
Rossini: “It’s the endless opportunity in front of us. We’re at the right university in the right market at the right time. Having the strength of ASU behind what we’re doing in athletics, and having a president that’s committed to our athletic program and investing in it in the way that has been happening, we’re capable of anything. It’s on us as an athletic department to build relationships and connections throughout the community to help our fans understand the very visible and important role that they play in our success, how we create this community of sport together, and how we’re enriching the journey of young people that we’re here to develop and grow through sport.
“There’s a new opportunity coming at us every single day. It’s our responsibility to ask the right questions, get connected in the right circles, bring people back to the Tempe campus to enjoy athletic competition. It’s a wonderful thing to be a part of on a daily basis. That’s the beauty of having Sun Devils leading Sun Devils at a moment in time that is critically important for not only our athletic department, but our university across the board.”
Top photo via USA TODAY Network
