Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick will step down in 2024 following a tenure as one of the most influential voices in college athletics.
The university in South Bend, Ind., announced on Thursday that NBC Sports Group chairman and Notre Dame alumnus Pete Bevacqua will succeed Swarbrick. Bevacqua will join the staff on July 1 in the role of special assistant for athletics to the Rev. John Jenkins, the school president.
Swarbrick has guided Fighting Irish athletics since 2008. An exact date for his exit in 2024 was not announced. He will remain on board to mentor Bevacqua and help oversee a department composed of 26 varsity sports and more than 100 coaches and staff and more than 700 student-athletes.
The departure of Swarbrick, 69, was not characterized as a retirement. He told Sports Illustrated it was his decision and that he would “love to do one more thing in the industry.”
“I feel great about where we are,” Swarbrick said. “There’s a sense that it’s the appropriate time. It’s important for Father John to make the selection of the next AD, because I don’t know how much longer he’s going to go.”
Hallmarks of Swarbrick’s tenure included joining the Atlantic Coast Conference — while maintaining independence in football — and hiring football coach Brian Kelly to resurrect the program. Notre Dame has won 10 NCAA titles in five sports (women’s basketball, men’s and women’s soccer, men’s lacrosse and fencing) under his watch.
Before he joined NBC Sports in 2018, Bevacqua previously spent six years as the PGA of America CEO. He is a 1993 Notre Dame grad.
“This is an unbelievable honor for me and a dream come true. With the exception of my family, nothing means more to me than the University of Notre Dame,” said Bevacqua, 51, who was promoted to chairman of NBC Sports in 2020. “As a Notre Dame alum, I have a keen understanding and deep appreciation of the lifetime, transformational benefit our student-athletes receive in a Notre Dame education, one that is unique and unlike any other institution in the world.
“I am so grateful to Father Jenkins, the Board of Trustees and, of course, Jack Swarbrick. Jack has become a true friend over the course of the past several years and I am looking forward to working alongside him and learning as much as I can from the person I admire and respect the most in college athletics.”
–Field Level Media