Iowa interim athletic director Beth Goetz (right) watches a football game between the Iowa Hawkeyes and the Western Michigan Broncos at Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City on September 16. The Hawkeyes defeated the Broncos 41-10. Goetz was named Iowa's new permanent athletics director on Thursday. (Nick Rohlman/The Gazette)
IOWA CITY — Beth Goetz is here to stay.
Goetz, who has served as the University of Iowa's interim athletics director since Aug. 1 after Gary Barta resigned, has been named the university's permanent athletics director, the UI announced Thursday.
“Beth is a talented and dynamic leader, and the national search we conducted confirmed that she is the best athletics director at the University of Iowa,” UI President Barbara Wilson said in a statement. “She has done a remarkable job as an interim player and I am confident that she will lead our athletics department and student-athletes to new levels of performance both on the field and in the classroom.”
Goetz, who signed a five-year contract, will receive a base salary of $850,000 in addition to annual performance incentives of up to $175,000 and deferred compensation of $200,000 per year. She will also receive either up to two university-provided vehicles or a car allowance of $1,500 per month, according to her contract, which was reviewed by The Gazette following a public records request.
Her base salary as interim athletics director was $650,000, which was Barta's base salary when he announced his resignation.
Goetz will lead a department that supports 22 varsity sports with a total of more than 600 student-athletes. The department is expected to generate about $140.3 million in revenue this fiscal year.
Goetz first came to Iowa as assistant athletics director in September 2022. Eleven months later she took over the interim role. Goetz — who has experience as an athletics director from stints at Minnesota and Ball State — earned rave reviews in her first five-plus months as interim coach at Iowa.
“Every coach is behind her 100 percent,” Iowa women’s basketball head coach Lisa Bluder said at the Big Ten’s basketball media days ahead of the 2023-24 season. “She is an incredible team builder. She is a great leader. … I just think, 'If we don't hire them, it really wouldn't be a wise decision.'
University of Iowa interim athletics director Beth Goetz (right) speaks with women's basketball head coach Lisa Bluder (left) after a news conference at Carver-Hawkeye Arena in Iowa City on Aug. 17. (Jim Slosiarek/The Gazette)
Every active head coach on campus released statements in support of Goetz on Thursday after news of her permanent appointment broke.
Football head coach Kirk Ferentz said in a statement that he was “pleased that Beth has officially been hired as our university’s newest athletics director.”
“She has a vision that respects the traditions of our athletics programs while capitalizing on opportunities in the rapidly changing collegiate sports landscape,” Ferentz said. “Beth is highly professional and, in my opinion, well-equipped to handle this new era of college sports.”
Men's wrestling coach Tom Brands said the “Hawks had the best” with Goetz as their leader. “Beth Goetz earned her start in the business by not being about business,” Brands said. “She cares about the right things.”
Many of Goetz's colleagues from previous jobs have also gone out of their way to praise her, including Boston Celtics team president Brad Stevens.
“I have told everyone who has listened to her, everywhere she has been, and everyone I know, that she is one of the best administrators and leaders I have ever worked with,” said Stevens, who worked with her from Butler University in Indiana spoke to The Gazette by phone last year.
The 49-year-old Goetz now permanently heads a department that has had an unusually long tenure at the top. Barta's tenure at Iowa lasted exactly 17 years, and Bob Bowlsby previously served at Iowa for 15 years – first leading the men's athletic department before the men's and women's departments merged in 2000.
“I am truly humbled and honored to lead Iowa's storied athletics program, and I am grateful to President Wilson and the selection committee for their confidence in my leadership,” Goetz said in a statement. “The University of Iowa is a world-class institution with a proven commitment to excellence in athletics.”
Goetz, whose promotion is effective immediately but must be approved by the Iowa Board of Regents, is the only woman currently serving as an athletics director in the Big Ten. She is also the first woman to serve as athletic director at Iowa since Christine Grant led the then-separate women's athletics department from 1973 to 2000.
University of Iowa interim athletics director Beth Goetz answers reporters' questions during a news conference to formally introduce her at Carver-Hawkeye Arena in Iowa City on Aug. 17. Goetz replaced Gary Barta, who retired Aug. 1 after 17 years as athletics director. (Jim Slosiarek/The Gazette)
Thursday's announcement concludes an official search process that began late last year. The UI hired TurnkeyZRG to conduct the search and formed a 10-member search committee that included a mix of university and athletics department employees, a current athlete and major donor P. Sue Beckwith.
Nicole Grosland, associate dean of the UI's College of Engineering and committee chair, said the search “produced an impressive group of candidates.”
“The committee had the opportunity to interview several sitting athletic directors from across the country,” Grosland said in a statement. “Beth emerged as a finalist with a strong vision to lead the department at this crucial time.”
TurnkeyZRG has previously conducted several other high-profile searches in college sports, including for NCAA president, Big 12 commissioner and ACC commissioner.
It's unclear how much the university spent on the search.
The UI's contract with TurnkeyZRG, which The Gazette obtained last month through a public records request, states that the recruiting firm will receive a fee equal to a “percentage of the position's total cash compensation in the first year.”
However, the contract did not specify what this percentage was. The UI has not yet honored a follow-up request for documents that could provide the percentage.
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