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Heeke is the Wildcats 13th Athletic Director taking over February 2017 after 11 years as the AD at Central Michigan. He also spent 18 years in the Oregon athletic department. Heeke is from East Lansing, MI, and graduated from Albion College where he was a catcher and co-captain of the baseball team.
Heeke has had his hands full since arriving at Arizona. Instead of inheriting a stable program from an AD who moved up, he has had what seems like a 1 1/2 of crisis management. Both football and basketball have had national scandals and required the hiring of a new football coach. Heeke, unfortunately, appears like he has had to spend more times with lawyers than with athletes since arriving at Arizona.
Despite the problems, Heeke has been a steady, positive force. His experience shows and no problem has been too big and it looks like each has been dealt with fairly and straight forward. In addition, Heeke has been able to launch, fund and expand the facility improvement plans left for him. We worried about losing the last AD, but Heeke has proven so far to be an upgrade with fewer tweets and less self promotion.
And he led to Coach Sumlin! After getting really, really excited about the last 2 football hires I am trying to temper my enthusiasm, but Coach Sumlin looks like the best possible hire especially considering the bad-timing and problems with the release of Rich Rod. If Sumlin doesn't work out at least Heeke also has given us beer at the stadium.
On a negative note, Heeke got his masters degree from The Ohio State University and rumor has it they may be in the market for a new athletic director before too long.
28 is the school record for TD passes in a season shared by Anu Solomon, 2014, Willy Tuitama, 2007, and Nick (Super Bowl MVP) Foles, 2011.