Iowa AD Beth Goetz embraces changing landscape while showing Iowa can be ‘destination’ for women in sports

IOWA CITY — As Beth Goetz walked into Carver-Hawkeye Arena’s Feller Club Room, the chatter of athletes standing on each side of the room quickly evaporated.

The much-anticipated moment and milestone — the one the softball team arrived close to a half-hour early for, with others walking in closer to the 2:30 start time — had arrived as Goetz was officially introduced as Iowa’s permanent athletics director.

Goetz is the first woman to lead Iowa’s full athletics department and is the only woman to currently be an AD in the Big Ten. (Goetz will be one of two women when USC, led by Jennifer Cohen, joins the conference later this year.)

“I understand the responsibility, of course, to be the individual that someone might look at and say, ‘Hey, I can take that same path one day,’” Goetz said.

Goetz joins the late Christine Grant — Iowa’s women’s athletics director from 1973 until her retirement in 2000 and a nationally-renowned Title IX advocate — as the only women to work as an AD at Iowa.

“I stand on the shoulders of so many, and literally in the place where those that came before me fought to be sure that these opportunities existed,” Goetz said in the same building where Grant once worked. “I'm incredibly proud to be in that seat.”

Iowa women’s basketball coach Lisa Bluder, who was mentored by Grant and has long been an advocate for Goetz, said last week the university’s long-term hire of Goetz “is showing how they promote women and how they stand behind women.”

“I'm really excited that the University of Iowa chose Beth because of not only her unbelievable ability, but because it also shows that we are promoting and backing great women leaders,” Bluder said on Friday.

Iowa has seen unique longevity from the AD position. Goetz’s immediate predecessor Gary Barta, who was in attendance for Tuesday’s news conference, was in his role for 17 years. Before that, Bob Bowlsby had a 15-year tenure. Grant was the women’s AD for 27 years, and Bump Elliott was the men’s AD for 21 years.

Goetz — a “Midwest kid” who now is 49 — “absolutely” views the Iowa AD position as a destination job.

“I don't know what else you would look for that's beyond these walls,” Goetz said. “I'm excited about my tenure here and certainly look forward to staying as long as President Wilson will have me.”

Goetz said UI President Barbara Wilson advised her when offering the interim AD position last summer to “do the job” rather than waiting on the outcome of Wilson’s long-term decision before making major moves. That was most evident when Goetz announced the decision on Oct. 30 to not retain offensive coordinator Brian Ferentz beyond the 2023 season.

"You work hard to ensure that while you may not agree on every account, that they know that you support them, you care about them, and certainly in the case of football, how passionate I am about continuing to support Coach (Kirk) Ferentz and that program moving forward,“ Goetz said.

Now operating with a five-year contract instead of an interim tag, there are “some things that we are now looking to do” that Goetz waited on doing before.

“Some of the items that we didn't tackle were those that we thought might be disruptive until we had a permanent leader in place,” Goetz said.

That includes hiring a deputy AD to replace the position Goetz held before her promotion last summer. That position “may look a little bit different” from what it was before.

“While we're not going to delay too long, I do want to make sure that we hire to where we're going,” Goetz said.

Her recognition of where collegiate athletics is going — a changing landscape is an “understatement,” she said — comes as various legal challenges could dramatically affect how college athletes are compensated.

Goetz is “confident the Hawks are well-positioned to navigate" the changes and already has embraced NIL in a way her predecessor had not done.

“It's incredibly important that we both honor our tradition at the University of Iowa, but welcome and run to what that future is going to look like,” Goetz said. “We can lead in that space."

While the future of collegiate athletics has plenty of uncertainty, Tuesday’s moment at Carver-Hawkeye Arena — the same place where Grant worked as a Title IX pioneer several decades earlier — showed in no uncertain terms the rejuvenated momentum toward supporting women in sports.

“This is a destination for our young female athletes, no doubt about it,” Goetz said.

Comments: john.steppe@thegazette.com