Navy's new athletic director has Annapolis roots and global ambition

Washington Post

24-06-2025

Growing up with a parent who graduated from the Naval Academy, Michael Kelly attended countless football games at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium during his youth. As of Monday, Kelly became responsible for overseeing the Midshipmen football program as well as every other sport as Navy's new athletic director.
The graduate of St. John's College High in Washington introduced himself to his new co-workers on his second day on the job during an informal gathering Tuesday at packed Akerson Theater, where the football team typically watches game film. Sitting in the front row were his parents, including his father, Dennis, a member of Navy's class of 1967.
'To come back to the DMV, it means a lot to me. Growing up in the area, playing basketball at St. John's for coach [Joe] Gallagher and being part of the whole scene here,' Kelly said. 'Back then, going to games when David Robinson was playing [basketball] here, seeing when Maryland and Georgetown were all great on the basketball side, to me it's all that. It's nostalgic to be home.'
Kelly replaces Chet Gladchuk, who announced March 31 he would be retiring after a 24-year tenure highlighted by a dramatic resurgence in football prosperity. Among Gladchuk's most consequential final duties was taking a lead role in the national search for his replacement.
Also figuring prominently in the search was Chad Chatlos, a 1993 Navy graduate who serves as managing director for TurnkeyZRG, the executive recruiting firm the academy retained for the process, which lasted close to 10 weeks and comprised 23 candidates, according to Gladchuk.
'In the final analysis, it was across the board — the farther we got, the closer we got to a decision, it became clearer and clearer and clearer that there was one gentleman that just absolutely stood out amongst all,' Gladchuk said of Kelly. 'We looked at his background, and it was extraordinary. He's done everything.'
Kelly most recently was the athletic director at South Florida, where among his most notable accomplishments over seven years was almost doubling the department's budget to $100 million. The Bulls expanded to 21 varsity sports under his watch and claimed 21 team championships in the American Athletic Conference, where Navy is a current member in football.
Kelly's previous jobs included serving as the chief operating officer of the College Football Playoff, managing site selection for the national championship game and the national semifinals, and as senior associate commissioner for the ACC from 2007 through 2013, playing a prominent role in negotiating the ACC's television rights contract in 2010.
'I think the job at the ACC and then also my job at the CFP kind of helps me — not only helps us navigate major business deals as it relates to where we might move Army-Navy, where we put Navy-Notre Dame, things of that nature,' Kelly said, 'because that's kind of what I was involved in and then certainly the whole television aspect of it. How can we maximize the value of the tradition and the excellence of Navy football and really all Navy sports?'
The Midshipmen are coming off a 10-3 record in football capped by a dramatic victory in the Armed Forces Bowl over Oklahoma. The Midshipmen earned double-digit wins for the sixth time in program history in the second season under Coach Brian Newberry, who sat in the second row during Kelly's introductory address inside the football facility Tuesday.
'For me it's been all about meeting as many people as I possibly can here internally and certainly talking to donors and sponsors and others, too,' Kelly said. 'So that's really what I'm focused on this week, is to just introduce myself, tell them how excited I am to be here and being able to be ready, spending this whole month mainly focused on that so we can hit the ground running when the true summer camps start and getting ready for what I expect will be a very successful fall for Navy football and for all of our fall sports.'