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: New UL athletic director Maggard: ‘He likes people’ – favorite food experiences

Tim Buckley, The Advertiser, April 1, 2017
Very funny. Good sense of humor. Always the jokester.
That’s three athletic administrators from across the country, all commenting on the personal side of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette’s new athletic director.
Aside from his wise ways, the serious side, a focus on the student-athlete, a common theme emerges: The guy likes to laugh.
But to really get to know Bryan Maggard, one should start with the roots.
Dexter, Kansas.
Where is it?
“I’m surprised you don’t know,” Maggard said on the day of his Feb. 1 introduction as Scott Farmer’s successor at UL.
But unless you’re a scientist — helium was first detected in natural gas there in the early 1900s — or a native Kansan, you probably don’t.
It’s a map-dot community in south-central Kansas, for the record, not far from the Oklahoma border.
How small?
“Small. Intimate,” Maggard, who officially started on the job in early March, said with a smile. “That’s why you never married from the same town, because you’re just too close.”
Population in 2015, for the record and according to the United States Census Bureau: 275.
“No stoplights,” Maggard said.
Stop signs?
“A couple, maybe. Bent over.”
Related:UL decides Maggard is right fit as athletic director
His late mother, Helen, raised Bryan Scott Maggard in Dexter, and on the day he talked about taking the UL job the 47-year-old said he knew “she would be very proud.”
“My mom,” he said, “instilled in me the values of faith, respect, love, hard work and dependability.”
According to those worked closely with Maggard in athletic administration during his two-plus decades at the University of Missouri, Helen taught well.
“Family man. A man of faith,” said Missouri executive athletic director Tim Hickman, who worked with Maggard throughout the new UL athletic director’s stay at Mizzou. “Somebody you can count on.”
When he worked with Maggard at Missouri, current Virginia Tech athletic director Whit Babcock said he knew “if Bryan told you something, you could take it to the bank.”
“He’s one of the best ‘people’ I’ve met in terms of being just a good person,” said Appalachian State athletic director Doug Gillin, who also worked alongside Maggard at Mizzou. “Honest. High integrity. And smart.”
Very smart.
The small-town Kansas kid from Dexter High — “You are looking at one of 14 graduates from my graduating class,” he said — holds a PhD from Missouri in Education, School & Counseling Psychology.
EQUIPMENT GUY
At Dexter High, Maggard said, “you knew everybody K through 12.”
He played various sports there, but admits that “on my very best day, I was an average athlete.”
From Dexter it was on to Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas, a college town whose nickname is “The Little Apple.”
The population there is roughly 55,000 these days, but not much more than that.
Still, Maggard said, “I thought that was a metropolis . … To me, it was The Big Apple.”
There were stop signs, standing tall, and stoplights. Red, yellow, green, go. Crazy.
Related:New UL athletic director addresses Sun Belt future
At Kansas State, Maggard didn’t play football or any other collegiate sport. But he did take a bite at what now is at the core of his professional career.
It came during his sophomore, junior and senior years, working as a student equipment manager for the Wildcat football team.
In the mid-to-late 1980s, K-State wasn’t very good.
The Wildcats won one game in 1985, two in 1986, none with one tie in ’87, none in ’88 and one in ’89, their first season under the man now in his second stint at the school, Bill Snyder.
“Kansas State back in those days could not buy a win,” Maggard said. “K-State, as part of the Big Eight (Conference), always played for last place.”
The team really was lousy.
But the inspiration was awesome.
Maggard’s undergraduate degree is in journalism, with an emphasis in advertising.
“About my senior year,” he said, “I realized I didn’t want to do that.”
Exposure to Big Eight football, however, made Maggard think.
Related:Football scheduling: New UL AD weighs fan, coach needs
“That experience did whet my appetite,” he said, “and that’s how I got turned on to working in the athletic industry — thinking I wanted to maybe work in professional sports, a front-office position.”
Maggard served an internship around that time with the NFL’s Washington Redskins, during one of their preseason camps.
He used the opportunity to talk with those in the business.
“The No. 1 advice everyone gave me was ‘Go back and get your masters,’ ” Maggard said.
So he did.
Maggard worked on a Kansas State master’s in Health & Physical Education from 1990-92.
But a graduate degree wasn’t all he pursued. He and wife Kerry starting dating around then.
“It will be 26 years in June since I tricked her into marrying me,” Maggard said.
With Kerry in front of him at his introductory Ragin’ Cajun address, an emotional Maggard spoke to the couple’s three children — Dalton, Aubrey and Kaylin, the older two graduate students at Mizzou, the youngest a high school senior back in Columbia, Missouri — as they sat by their mother’s side.
“In short, you guys are my reason for being on this earth,” he told them, “and it’s a great honor to be your dad.
“Nobody knows better than these three my shortcomings — times of impatience, times of anger and sometimes times of absence.”
Athletic administration can be time-consuming.
“But you guys know why you’re awesome,” he said.
Some of the serious showing, some of the humor seemingly sneaking out too, it’s mostly, he said to smiles and perhaps a tear or two, “because you have a mom.”
New UL athletic director Bryan Maggard introduces himself ‘TWO SEDATED CATS’
Master’s degree in hand, and experience working as an academic counselor for the Wildcats football team in the bag, Maggard and his young family left Kansas State for Florida State in 1993.
Maggard recalls loading up the minivan and taking off for Tallahassee with two basset hounds and “two sedated cats” when son Dalton was two weeks old.
After two years and a month working as assistant director for academic services with the Seminoles football team, he drove back to Big Eight territory — this time settling in for nearly 22 years spent in a variety positions in Missouri’s athletic department, most recently as executive associate athletic director for a program with a $90-plus-million budget.
That can buy a lot of stop signs in Dexter.
“We all start out as some type of expert,” Maggard said.
“My expertise coming in was on the student-service side. But then as I was to rise … at Missouri I was given the opportunity to oversee our external units, I’ve overseen some of internal units, I’ve overseen facilities and operations, I’ve overseen masterplanning (and) capital projects.”
From facility improvements to program administration, and strategic planning to crisis communication, Maggard wore many hats at Missouri.
“I think that will benefit him a ton (at UL),” Hickman said.
Another benefit, good-friend  Hickman feels, is Maggard’s management style.
“Very thorough, very thoughtful,” said Hickman, who got a phone call from Maggard about 15 minutes after Savoie offered him the job.
“He likes to gather information and facts, and know all the information as he works with staff that report to him or work with him. He’s a champion for their cause, but he’s also fair and always has the best interest of the institution in mind.”
Conscientious. Passionate. Compassionate.
Those are attributes Appalachian State’s Gillin uses to describe Maggard as an administrator after they overlapped twice at Missouri, most recently from 2012-15.
“He’s somebody I can always bounce ideas off of, whether personal or professional,” Gillin said, “and he would have really good, thoughtful advice.”
Maggard, Hickman said, is “not a stuffy academic-type, and somebody who sits in his office.”
“He likes people,” Hickman said. “He gets out and engages with people.”
Related:New UL boss eager to get to know coaches
THE LIGHT SIDE
Whether watching UL’s men’s and women’s basketball teams play at the Sun Belt Conference basketball tournament in New Orleans, throwing out the first pitch at a Cajun baseball game, taking in a softball game or popping in at a track meet, Maggard seems to have shown up everywhere during his first few weeks on the job.
He’s taken time to shake hands and visit with patrons and program supporters at a coffee house in Crowley, and plans to visit every Acadiana-area parish soon.
From boiled crawfish and etouffee to poboys and burgers, he’s made sure to experience the local cuisine too.
From the sound of it, he already likes a good boudin ball as much as he likes a good joke.
And Maggard does loves the jokes.
In one breath, Babcock speaks of his ex-colleague’s integrity and academic drive.
“But what I enjoy about Bryan as well is that he has a sense of humor, and can laugh at himself from time-to-time.” he said.
“I don’t want to give (the impression) he’s not serious about his job. He is. But just that light-heartedness — to be able to laugh at ourselves — he was very good at that.”
Gillin remembers it well, something he got to experience when the two would travel together to different Missouri sporting events.
“He’s got a really good sense of humor,” the Appalachian State athletic director said, “and he knows how to use it.
“When you need levity in a situation, Bryan can remind us all that sometimes — as stressful as you might get — that there’s other things going on too.
“He is the consummate jokester,” Hickman said. “He likes to needle people and have fun, and I think that’s a big part of his personality.
“He’s always a fun guy to be around, and you’ve kind of got to watch your back sometimes, because he’ll get at you if you’re not careful and don’t get to him first. Sometimes that’s the key: get to him first.”

Five of Bryan Maggard’s favorite food experiences during his first few weeks as UL’s new athletic director:
1. HIS FIRST LOUISIANA CRAWFISH BOILS
Maggard: “I’ve been to a couple, and I honestly believe I can eat crawfish three times a day. I love it.”
2. JUDICE INN, LAFAYETTE
Maggard: “Really, really enjoyed my first Judice burger.”
3. FRENCH PRESS, LAFAYETTE
Maggard: “Boudin Poboy (boudin balls, ham, mayo, melted cheddar and Swiss cheese, scallions and praline bacon on French bread). That was really, really good.”
4. FEZZO’S, SCOTT
Maggard: “Some excellent shrimp etouffee. … I had a lunch meeting there, and I’ll tell you what: That was one heckuva lunch.”
5. OLDE TYME GROCERY, LAFYETTE
Maggard: “(Deputy athletic director) Jessica Leger, actually, one time she got me a to-go meal there. I think it was … a turkey sandwich that had this gravy on it. Oh gosh, it was good.”