New MSU AD J Batt: Michigan State 'a top-10 athletic department in the country'
EAST LANSING — A little more than a month ago, Michigan State President Kevin Guskiewicz determined his athletic department needed a change in leadership.
The school hired Atlanta-based firm TurnKeyZRG to conduct a search for candidates to replace Alan Haller. In charge would be Chad Chatlos, the company's managing director of athletics administration and coaching.
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Unlike Guskiewicz, in his position for a little over a year and still learning about MSU, Chatlos is the son of former Spartan football player George Chatlos and understands the history and scope of MSU's athletic department and community. And Guskiewicz charged Chatlos with one duty.
'I said, 'I want to know the top five or six people in the country,'' Guskiewicz recalled Wednesday, June 4. 'And (Chatlos) said, 'Do you want to know the top five or six who are moveable, or do you want to know the top five or six?'
'I said, Chad, Michigan State deserves the best. I want to know who the best five or six are.'
J Batt speaks Wednesday, June 4, 2025, after being introduced as Michigan State University's new athletic director.
INSIDE THE SPARTANS: New Michigan State AD J Batt's priority list: Make connections, build fundraising
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At the top of the list was J Batt, the athletic director at Georgia Tech (also located in Atlanta). It not only happened to be a name Guskiewicz was familiar with, but a person he'd known for a quarter-century.
Familiarity and serendipity intersected.
'Michigan State University deserves the best,' Guskiewicz said, 'and that's what we got.'
Batt was introduced as the Spartans' 21st athletic director on Wednesday as the school's first outside hire to the position in 30 years. And the 43-year-old —an MSU outsider like Guskiewicz — made clear his biggest immediate tasks are to learn and to get his new department and its benefactors moving into the future of college athletics collectively.
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'My first priority is to is to listen, to ask a bunch of questions,' Batt said. 'So I'll meet with all of our head coaches, I'll meet with all of our staff. And then I'll hit the road. I don't sit still well, so I'll go on the road to meet with donors and supporters, our trustees. And I'll learn. I'll learn a lot. I think it's the most important thing, particularly when you start one of these new opportunities.
'This is an incredible place. It's an incredible place with great tradition and history. And my job one is to learn all of that.'
Contract terms are not expected to be released until MSU's Board of Trustees approve it at a June 13 meeting, but Batt is expected to receive a six-year contract for around $1.8 million per year, a source familiar with the deal told the Free Press on Sunday.
'This is a top-10 athletic department in the country,' Batt said.
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Batt has spent his entire life in university communities. He was born in Champaign, Illinois, as his parents worked for the University of Illinois before moving to Charlottesville, Virginia, where they worked at the University of Virginia's medical center. Batt went on to play soccer at the University of North Carolina, where he first met Guskiewicz. Guskiewicz, who received his PhD from UVA, was researching concussions as a professor at UNC when the two first met.
The two kept in touch. After graduating from Chapel Hill with an undergraduate degree in journalism and a master's in athletic management, Batt moved into the athletic fundraising world. It included stops at his alma mater, as well as East Carolina, Maryland, James Madison and William & Mary. He became Alabama's executive deputy director of athletics, chief operating officer and chief revenue officer before getting his first athletic director job at Georgia Tech in October 2022.
Meanwhile, Guskiewicz arrived at MSU last year after serving as chancellor at UNC for five years. While MSU explored potentially hiring from the private business sector, Guskiewicz said Batt's experience in recruiting donors along with having been a Division I athlete and a sitting athletic director made him uniquely qualified to lead MSU into the changing world of college athletics.
'He's walked the sidelines. He's been on the sidelines as an athlete himself, but also spending a lot of time with coaches — and some really good coaches,' Guskiewicz said. 'But he understands the business side, the corporate side of this. And so I think we got the best of both (worlds).'
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Hall of Fame MSU basketball coach Tom Izzo, who served as co-interim athletic director after Haller's removal on May 1, flew to Atlanta to meet with Batt and had an initial 'gut-check' that Batt was the right fit. He also consulted with former Spartans and Alabama football coach Nick Saban as well as current Atlantic Coast Conference commissioner Jim Phillips, who told Izzo that MSU 'hit a home run' with Batt.
Michigan State Athletic Director J Batt, middle, and wife Leah share a laugh with MSU basketball coach Tom Izzo, right, Wednesday, June 4, 2025, before Batt was introduced as the Spartan's new athletic director.
And Izzo felt the connection between Batt and Guskiewicz is important.
'The same reason I really liked Kevin when I first interviewed him on the committee, the first thing he said is, 'I love to fundraise.' And I said, 'Any president that says that, he gets a vote from me and he gets a 'what the hell's wrong with you?' Because nobody likes to fundraise,'' Izzo said. 'J kind of said the same thing. … And if you've got somebody at the top that understands all that and that is willing to go out and raise money and do the things that we have to do now and be a leader in that area, I think it's going to be very valuable.'
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Even with his background as an Olympic-sport athlete in college, Batt pointed to MSU's football program as being the primary revenue driver and pledged to give second-year coach Jonathan Smith the funding and resources to build the Spartans back to national prominence.
'It's imperative we support all our sports,' Batt said. 'But do not be confused. Every athletic department competing at the highest level must be successful in football.'
Smith pointed to Batt being part of the NCAA's House Settlement Implementation Committee, which is working to 'implement a new model for the future of college sports focused on stability and fairness,' as giving MSU a major voice in what the evolving rules changes with name, image and likeness and other significant issues will look like.
'He's been in those circles, sat in the seat,' Smith said. 'I do know some people that have worked with him before and did talk to them, and he's highly, highly recommended. So it's impressive. …
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'He mentioned the word multiple times, 'alignment' in our approach. And so when he gets back here in a couple of weeks, we'll tighten that up and go to work.'
Michigan State Athletic Director J Batt, right, speaks, Wednesday, June 4, 2025, after being introduced by MSU President Kevin Guskiewicz.
Batt had signed a contract extension at Georgia Tech in December that ran through 2029, so that was part of the reason he initially did not appear in play for MSU. But Guskiewicz joked that, 'Just the fact that he took my call when I was told he wouldn't, that was a good start.'
Now, the synergy between the two — once mentor and student, now becoming a working relationship — will be critical to try and return MSU to national visibility and prominence.
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'He certainly knows what high level intercollegiate athletics looks like at a championship level, and I have full faith and trust in him,' Batt said of Guskiewicz. 'And so when he made that call through the search firm, it was one of those — 'Absolutely.'
'I certainly can tell you that there's lots more to learn, but it's a heck of a starting place.'
Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him @chrissolari.
Subscribe to the "Spartan Speak" podcast for new episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or anywhere you listen to podcasts. And catch all of our podcasts and daily voice briefing at freep.com/podcasts.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan State AD J Batt praises Spartans: 'A top-10 athletic department'
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