In September 2020, when Rick Dickson returned from New Orleans for a second tour of duty as the University of Tulsa athletic director, he was expected to be there only for a few months.
Instead, he was there for a few years and his impact was immense.
I don’t care about the criteria regarding qualification for the TU Athletics Hall of Fame. It’s ridiculous that Dickson hasn’t already been inducted. He’s a Tulsa native and former Golden Hurricane athlete. During his 1990-94 first run as the TU athletic director, he hired the great Tubby Smith. That led to the most accomplished 10-season run in Hurricane basketball history.
With the Friday announcement that Dickson will retire after his contract expires on June 30, TU is staggered by the upcoming departures of two all-time cornerstone people in the athletic department.
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Joining Dickson in retirement is media-relations director Don Tomkalski, who arrived at TU during the 1983-84 semester break. It’s impossible to overstate Tomkalski’s importance on that campus, and it’ll be impossible for the university to find a successor who can replicate his connections, influence and work ethic.
The search for TU’s next athletic director is a pressure assignment for university President Brad Carson. From that next person who occupies the corner office in the athletic department building, there has to be the replication of Dickson’s connections, influence and work ethic.
As he breathed life into TU’s athletics marketing and fund-raising, Dickson’s 2020-24 performance alone should result in Hall of Fame membership.
The connections and influence pieces are more gradual than immediate, but Carson must identify an athletic director who isn’t afraid of the challenges faced by a small private school that plays major-college football.
Ideally, the next athletic director is familiar with the TU culture — or already is part of the TU culture.
A year ago, I wrote on this topic and this was the headline on tulsaworld.com: Rick Dickson’s TU successor – ORU’s Tim Johnson has to get the first call.
Johnson is a 42-year-old Bartlesville native who attended Oklahoma State, received a law degree at the University of Arkansas and was an impactful assistant athletic director at Clemson.
At Oral Roberts University, Johnson became Mike Carter’s deputy athletic director in 2015. In 2021, Johnson succeeded Carter in the athletic director role and has been remarkably effective.
Not only did Johnson elevate that athletic department’s success levels in fund-raising and marketing, but he actually designed the Mike Carter Center — ORU’s remarkable new basketball practice facility on the south edge of the Mabee Center.
Having rallied ORU donors for an extensive renovation of the Golden Eagles’ baseball stadium, Johnson is blessed with the people-skill talent required in the fund-raising business. At Clemson, he raised a lot of money for Tiger football, and he was a difference-maker in that school’s campaign to raise $1 billion for various projects.
ORU would be sickened to lose Johnson to its crosstown rival, but Johnson should be Candidate No. 1 for the University of Tulsa’s athletic director position.
Carson will look far and wide at possibilities, of course, and those possibilities may include well-known TU figures like Dave Rader and Jerry Ostroski.
Rader also is a Tulsa native who was a Golden Hurricane quarterback during the ’70s and in 1988-99 was the TU head football coach. Since 2016, Rader has been a state senator.
For the Rader-coached, 10-win Hurricane football team of 1991, Ostroski was an All-American offensive lineman. He was on the Buffalo Bills’ offensive line for eight seasons and since retirement from the NFL has been a sports-talk radio host, worked in medical sales positions and for a brief period was employed by the TU athletic department as a fund-raiser.
Ostroski and his family reside in Tulsa. His son Owen was unblockable at Holland Hall and now is an outstanding defensive player at TU. Jerry Ostroski is a really smart guy and has a deep-rooted relationship with the University of Tulsa.
This hire isn’t like a coaching hire. There isn’t a rush to finish in a week. Carson has time to examine the credentials of applicants from all over the country.
Presumably, Carson will want to introduce his new athletic director several days or several weeks before Dickson launches Chapter 2 of his retirement.
Before Dickson’s 2015 retirement at Tulane, he was heroic. As the Tulane athletic director, Dickson was a driving force in saving the devastated Green Wave athletic department after Hurricane Katrina.
In 2020, Dickson answered the University of Tulsa’s call after then-athletic director Derrick Gragg resigned to take a job with the NCAA. Dickson didn’t expect to be involved in any TU coaching changes, but he wound up replacing football coach Philip Montgomery with Kevin Wilson, replacing men’s basketball coach Frank Haith with Eric Konkol, and replacing women’s basketball coach Matilda Mossman with Angie Nelp.
Dickson’s family is the biggest reason for his desire to step away from everyday administrative responsibilities. Four years ago, Rick and Brenda Dickson had two grandchildren. Now, they have eight.
Now, Carson and his advisors have a heavy assignment — to find someone who can be as valuable for the University of Tulsa as Rick Dickson was in 1990-94 and again since 2020.