President Michael Crow said he planned to use universities such as Stanford and California as models to guide his athletic director search.
On Saturday, Crow picked USC Senior Associate Athletic Director Lisa Love to replace Gene Smith, who left ASU earlier this month to become athletic director at Ohio State.
Love, 49, becomes ASU's first non-interim female athletic director and just the sixth female to head the department at a Division I school with a football program. She is scheduled to take over July 1.
"This is a climate and an environment in which there is no reason you cannot explode with success," Love said. "The level of knowledge I have of Arizona State from being at USC only helps."
Atlanta-based Baker-Parker and Associates helped filter a pool of about 50 candidates. Crow made the final call in hiring Love, who sported a Sparky pin Saturday during a press conference at the ASU Foundation Building.
"I was interested in looking for an individual who would dig in here, not move from job to job to job," Crow said. "That's a part of a next-generation athletic program, the building of stability, where coaches and athletic directors don't lead lives that are peripatetic to the extreme."
Specific terms of Love's five-year contract were not available, although Crow said Love would make slightly less than Smith, whose base salary at ASU was about $289,400.
"It's the same package with a slightly reduced salary," Crow said. "But the salary can be adjusted based on her performance."
Love coached USC's women's volleyball team to a 205-93 record from 1989-98. She took over as associate AD in 1991 and became senior associate AD in 2002.
Smith said Love's experience as a coach and volleyball player -- Love was a four-year starter at Texas Tech -- should pay big dividends.
"Because she was an athlete and a coach, she brings that special appreciation to the job," Smith said. "She cares about student-athletes and understands the pressures coaches are under."
Smith figures Love will manage just fine, even though Love doesn't have an extensive football background.
"That should not be a concern because Dirk [Koetter] knows football," Smith said. "She will do a very good job supporting him. She will create an environment for the athletes and coaches to be successful."
Reach the reporter at mark.saxon@asu.edu.
