NU hires Washington's Troy Dannen as AD, targets Jeffrey Gold as president

Within a matter of hours on Wednesday morning, the Nebraska football program and Husker Athletics landed two new prominent leaders: Troy Dannen and Dr. Jeffrey Gold.

University of Nebraska interim president Chris Kabourek named Dannen as NU’s next athletic director, effective Friday. Also on Wednesday, NU's Board of Regents named Gold, chancellor of the University of Nebraska Medical Center, the priority candidate to be the next president of NU.

NU will now begin a 30-day vetting period required under state law in order for Gold's hire to become official, which would be on April 19. Gold, a Cornell graduate, was also the chancellor at Nebraska-Omaha.

Dannen comes from Washington, where he was AD since last October. Before his time in Seattle, he was AD at Tulane from 2015-23. He was the AD at Northern Iowa, his alma mater, from 2008-15.

Dannen signed a six-year contract with Nebraska featuring a $1 million signing bonus and a base annual pay of $1.6 million. His base salary will increase $100,000 each year over the duration of the contract, which is set to expire March 31, 2030.

Year 1 – $1.6 million ($1,600,000)

Year 2 – $1.7 million ($1,700,000)

Year 3 – $1.8 million ($1,800,000)

Year 4 – $1.9 million ($1,900,000)

Year 5 – $2 million ($2,000,000)

Year 6 – $2.1 million ($2,100,000)

“From my first conversation with Troy Dannen, I knew he was a perfect fit for Nebraska,” Kabourek said. “He is a fierce competitor, he holds himself and his programs to uncommonly high standards, and he cares personally about the success of student-athletes in sports, school and life.

"Troy sees the vision and momentum we have here at Nebraska, from our bold investments in facilities to our record success in the classroom to our bold plan to elevate our national reputation and competitiveness, and he is excited to be a part of it. I am thrilled that we’ve found someone who is 100% aligned with our high expectations and will be all-in on Nebraska.

“Husker Nation, we’ve found a winner in Troy Dannen. I can’t wait to welcome him and his family to Nebraska.”

Dannen has a strong background in football administration. After Kalen DeBoer left for Alabama, Dannen landed Jedd Fisch from Arizona as the Huskies' head football coach. While at Tulane, Dannen hired Willie Fritz, who turned the Green Wave into a consistent winning program in a short time.

Dannen is in fourth year as chair of the NCAA Football Competition Committee and as an Executive Committee member of the Football Oversight Committee. From 2021 through 2023, Dannen served on the NCAA Constitution Committee and then the Division I Transformation Committee, as one of a small group of chancellors, presidents, directors of athletics, commissioners and Faculty Athletic Representatives across all three NCAA divisions tasked with charting a future path for college athletics.

In 2022, Dannen was a finalist for Sports Business Journal’s Athletic Director of the Year award, and he received the Distinguished American Award by the Sugar Bowl Chapter of the National Football Foundation.

It was at Tulane where Dannen met Matt Rhule, then head coach of Temple. Rhule briefly spoke with members of the local media Wednesday morning while at NU's Pro Day inside the Hawks Championship Center.

"I don't have a strong personal relationship with him, but I have a really good professional relationship with him," Rhule said of Dannen. "I think Troy fits all the criteria that I think we're all looking for. He's an accomplished athletic director — he's been on all the committees, he's been on the oversight committee. He knows the issues facing college football. He's an unbelievable guy.

"And it's no slight to the University of Washington, which is a wonderful place, my sister's alma mater. But I just know he wanted to come home and he wanted to be here. I know the announcement went out, I'm fired up and I'm excited to have him. I think the University of Nebraska took a step forward today."

Rhule said he's anxious to sit down with Dannen to discuss the many happenings in and around the football program. Chief among them, the coach said, is finishing the new football facility.

The team is fully utilizing the facility's weight room, locker room, recovery area and player lounge. But the coaches rooms aren't online yet. Neither is the training table and academic area, which all athletes at NU from different sports can use, and the area in the front of the facility that will be open to the public.

"The building's not done yet, I want the building to be done," Rhule said. "I want us to just keep pushing forward."

Rhule said the quickness of NU's AD search was impressive.

"The fact that this happened so quickly I think speaks great about the amount of candidates and interest, but I also think it's speaks about the job Chris Kabourek did to get this done this quickly," Rhule said. "You want to follow process, don't get me wrong, we want to make sure we do everything right, but we also want to match a need when a need arrises. My experience with Chris Kabourek throughout this has been fantastic. Gov. Jim Pillen has been fantastic. So very grateful."

Dannen was behind several fundraising efforts and projects at Tulane.

One of his accomplishments includes helping secure the largest unrestricted gift in Tulane Athletics history, an endowment gift which funds the operation of a new sport (Tulane added sailing), and a $10 million lead gift for capital renovations, which is the second largest gift in department history.

Under Dannen's guidance, Tulane's marketing and licensing revenue grew four-fold, and in 2022-23, Tulane football, basketball and volleyball set ticket sales and revenue records.

Behind Dannen’s efforts, the Green Wave Club Annual Fund grew by 40% in terms of donors, and 45% in terms of dollars.

According to NU, increases in fundraising and major gift donors positively impacted capital project development and completion at Tulane. A $13 million renovation to the Reilly Natatorium, home of the swimming and diving program, as well as $8 million in renovations to locker rooms and the Wilson Center sports medicine center were completed in 2023.

Dannen also oversaw construction of a new dining facility, weight room, basketball and volleyball locker rooms. Tulane also completed a $2.4 million academic center renovation and a $5 million television and digital production center.

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