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Martin Jarmond selected to replace Dan Guerrero as UCLA Athletics director

Boston College Athletics Director Martin Jarmond has been selected to be the next UCLA Athletics director beginning July 1. Jarmond will be the first African American athletics director in the department’s history. (Courtesy of Julia Hopkins/Heights Senior Staff)

By Sam Connon

May 16, 2020 10:29 a.m.

This post was updated May 17 at 9:25 a.m.

For the first time in nearly two decades, a fresh face will be calling the shots in Westwood.

UCLA has chosen Boston College Athletics Director Martin Jarmond to take over as its next director of athletics when Dan Guerrero’s contract expires July 1, Yahoo Sports reported Saturday. Jarmond – who became the youngest athletics director at a Power Five school when he was hired at the age of 37 in June 2017 – will be the first African American athletics director to lead UCLA Athletics.

UCLA is set to announce the hiring Monday and will introduce him virtually later in the week, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Guerrero’s contract initially ran until Dec. 31, 2019, but the UC Regents voted to give him a six-month extension in September. Guerrero announced Sept. 19 that he would retire at the end of his contract, and UCLA’s search for his successor has come to an end 240 days later. 

The LA Times reported Chancellor Gene Block, Emily A. Carter, executive vice chancellor and provost, and Yolanda Gorman, senior advisor to the chancellor for strategic initiatives, led the decision-making process.

Jarmond signed a six-year contract that will pay him $1.2 million in his first year and top out at $1.7 million in his final year.

According to multiple outlets, UCLA’s final candidates were Jarmond, Virginia’s Carla Williams and Penn’s M. Grace Calhoun. UNLV Athletics Director Desiree Reed-Francois was another finalist for the job, but she reportedly removed her name from the race Friday morning.

The Bruins won 32 NCAA championships in Guerrero’s 18 years leading the department, while the Eagles were titleless during Jarmond’s three-year tenure.

Boston College men’s basketball made the postseason for the first time since 2011 during Jarmond’s first year in town, while both the men’s and women’s hockey teams won conference titles. The closest Jarmond got to winning a national championship in his three years was when the Eagles’ women’s lacrosse team made the finals in 2018.

Jarmond made three head coaching hires at Boston College – women’s basketball, women’s volleyball and football. Former Ohio State co-defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley was Jarmond’s pick to head up the football team, a hire that earned him praise from Sports Illustrated, 247Sports and more.

But before Jarmond took the job in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, he spent more than a decade collecting trophies in the Big 10.

After Jarmond played four years for UNC Wilmington men’s basketball and earned an MBA and master’s in sports administration from Ohio University, he joined the Michigan State Athletics department in 2003, becoming an assistant athletics director in 2006. Over the next six years, the Spartans won the national title in men’s hockey, made two Final Fours in men’s basketball, hired eventual two-time Big Ten football coach of the year Mark Dantonio and made the national championship game in women’s basketball. 

Jarmond spent the next eight years at Ohio State, where he served as associate director of athletics, chief of staff and deputy director of athletics. The Buckeyes won nine NCAA championships during Jarmond’s tenure, including the 2014 College Football Playoff.

One of Jarmond’s key roles at Ohio State was as a director for coaching search committees, with his most notable hire being football coach Urban Meyer in 2012. Jarmond was a member of the inaugural College Football Playoff National Championship Advisory Group while he was in Columbus, Ohio, and he also served on the Rose Bowl Advisory Committee.

Ohio State won the 2010 Rose Bowl in Jarmond’s first year on the Buckeyes’ staff, while the Bruins have yet to do so since 1986.

It still remains to be seen which UCLA teams – if any – will take the field in the fall, but it now falls on Jarmond’s shoulders to decide how the athletic department will handle the COVID-19 pandemic, the $19 million deficit it ran in 2019 and the continued aftermath of the Varsity Blues college admissions scandal.

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Sam Connon | Alumnus
Connon joined the Bruin as a freshman in 2017 and contributed until he graduated in 2021. He was the Sports editor for the 2019-2020 academic year, an assistant Sports editor for the 2018-2019 academic year and spent time on the football, men's basketball, women's basketball, baseball, men's soccer, cross country, men's golf and women's golf beats, while also contributing movie reviews for Arts & Entertainment.
Connon joined the Bruin as a freshman in 2017 and contributed until he graduated in 2021. He was the Sports editor for the 2019-2020 academic year, an assistant Sports editor for the 2018-2019 academic year and spent time on the football, men's basketball, women's basketball, baseball, men's soccer, cross country, men's golf and women's golf beats, while also contributing movie reviews for Arts & Entertainment.
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