Chris McIntosh is stepping down as Wisconsin AD to take a new position at the Big Ten’s league office, and the decision to fire football coach Paul Chryst midway through the 2022 season and replace him with Luke Fickell “likely will be McIntosh’s legacy,” according to Todd Milewski of the WISCONSIN STATE JOURNAL. Chryst averaged 10 wins per season during his time with UW; Fickell after going 7-6 in 2023 has continued to slide backward, reaching just a 4-8 record in 2025. Additionally, season-ticket sales and attendance at Camp Randall Stadium “dropped off” last year. Football has not been the only flash point since McIntosh took over in 2021. He and his staff “faced criticism for the department’s plan to replace the Camp Randall Sports Center with a new indoor practice facility.” Some objected to the use of “more of a park dedicated to veterans; some balked at a plan to do away with commemorative bricks; some said the indoor track component of the new facility was half-baked.” McIntosh and others have portrayed that new facility, the Kellner Family Athletic Center, as a “game-changer for all 23 Badgers sports.” At a cost of $285M, it is the most expensive capital project ever undertaken by UW Athletics (WISCONSIN STATE JOURNAL, 4/13).
EMPHASIS ON MILWAUKEE: In Milwaukee, Stewart & Steppe noted UW under McIntosh placed a “greater emphasis on having a presence in the Milwaukee area.” The school resumed its holiday hockey showcase and the men’s basketball team “played an exhibition and regular season game at Fiserv Forum.” The volleyball team is scheduled to play at Fiserv in the American Volleyball Coaches Association First Serve Aug. 21-23 (MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL, 4/12).
SMART MOVE: In Madison, Jim Polzin writes McIntosh leaving to join the Big Ten office is “good career move on his part to join a stable organization and take on a role in which he can operate behind the scenes.” McIntosh is leaving a job that “seemed to be too big for him.” Being an AD at a major NCAA program “never has been easy,” but none of his predecessors “had to operate at a time of pure chaos in college athletics the way McIntosh has since being handed the keys at Wisconsin.” Having an experienced AD to steer through the NIL era and the NCAA transfer portal “would have been the best-case scenario for Wisconsin.” The school instead had “someone who didn’t exactly inspire confidence in the passengers along for the ride because there never seemed to be a straight path forward.” The athletic department had “far too many public-relations blunders that resulted in loyal and longtime fans feeling unappreciated.” When you cannot “get right what should be simple things, it’s no wonder Wisconsin has been lapped by competitors in the NIL world” (WISCONSIN STATE JOURNAL, 4/13).
