Brandon doesn’t confirm, deny A.D. interest

Michigan’s search for an athletic director continues, and all eyes are on Domino’s Chairman and CEO Dave Brandon. Brandon told WJR Radio’s Paul W. Smith and Steve Courtney Saturday Friday some were “starting to give me a complex, because people keep trying to get me another job than the one I have.”

Brandon added he currently has a terrific job, but wouldn’t say he wasn’t a candidate … though he also didn’t say he was.

Brandon played for Bo Schembechler in the 1970s and has been a Regent, also active in other ways with the university. He or another candidate will replace current A.D. Bill Martin, who recently announced he’d step down Sept. 4, 2010. A new athletic director will be named before then with Martin to stay on in an advisory role.

Brandon, a former Michigan player who has remained active with the university and was a regent, is among the individuals mentioned as potential candidates for the U-M athletic director’s job.

“Listen, I love my job at Domino’s pizza,” Brandon said. “It is an incredible brand and an incredible company. I am all over that job because it’s what I am—it’s what I love. I love the University of Michigan, too.

“I actually served the last year on a committee that president Coleman formed to kind of look at the future of intercollegiate athletics, and one of the things I learned that’s very important about intercollegiate athletics is that the presidents of these universities have to be the leaders as it relates to the management of those programs. Not the boosters, not the media, and not the former players; it’s got to be the presidents.

“The bottom line is Mary Sue Coleman has to make a really important decision, and it’s her decision to make. She’s announced, as I read it, that she’s forming a search committee. She’s obviously going to look at a lot of people, and she should, and she’s got a big decision to make.

“Good luck to president Coleman. She’s got a big job and a big decision to make. Leave it there.”

Brandon was then asked if he’d be willing to listen if approached about the Michigan athletic director’s job.

“We’ve had this conversation about U.S. Senate, we’ve had this conversation about governor, now were having this conversation,” Brandon said. “I have a terrific job, and I’m very focused on my little pizza company in Ann Arbor.”

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