Image Credit: UAA
The University Athletic Association has signed Florida Gators athletic director Scott Stricklin to a three-year contract extension, according to 247Sports. Stricklin, the long embattled leader of the athletic department, has led the program since Jeremy Foley stepped down in 2016.
For most of the last nine years, the Gators athletic program had been degrading under Stricklin’s leadership. Coupling disappointing on-field performances with a bevy of coaching hires that have resulted in allegations of player mistreatment, verbal abuse and sexual misconduct, Stricklin was seemingly turning Florida into a laughing stock off the field, and internally, a program that appeared to no longer prioritize the treatment and safety of its athletes and staff.
Calming the waters around his position have been his ability to raise money for the UAA — $86 million for the Heavener Football Training Center and Condron Family Ballpark, $399 million to renovate Ben Hill Griffin Stadium — and the recent success of the men’s basketball program as head coach Todd Golden, a Stricklin hire, led the Gators to the third national championship in program history and first since the departure of Billy Donovan.
Stricklin had previously fired the first three external hires he made since joining the program, and it appeared as recently as the middle part of last season that UF was on the precipice of terminating its fourth after Golden was put under a Title IX investigation amid allegations of sexual misconduct and sexual harassment of multiple female students.
Despite firing three coaches amid varying levels of wrongdoing during his tenure leading the UAA, Stricklin has largely hidden from the public eye, hoping the fervor would blow over in each situation.
Former soccer coach Tony Amato was fired in 2022 amid allegations of widespread player mistreatment during his lone season leading the program. On the field, Amato led the soccer team to a 4-12-4 record that year — by far the worst regular-season mark in program history — with 17 players leaving the team in 11 months. In announcing Amato’s firing, Stricklin did not address the allegations citing an “extremely difficult” decision made because there was a “disconnect between Tony and his athletes.” This after players and staff reportedly expressed their concerns to the UAA in an official letter, the only result of which was a group counseling session and promise of a full investigation that led to a general group apology.
Amato was the second of Stricklin’s first three external head coaching hires at UF to depart amid complaints of player mistreatment. Former head women’s basketball coach Cameron Newbauer resigned in 2021 after allegedly creating a toxic environment and verbally abusing players. Six weeks before his departure, despite a mountain of internal allegations against the coach, who led the program to a pitiful 46-71 (.393) mark in four seasons, Stricklin announced that Newbauer had signed an extension.
Stricklin similarly choose not to directly address details of the allegations against Newbauer in public, though he did later admit to making a misstep. In the immediate aftermath, though, he went on an extended media blackout, including during the ensuing football season, one filled with performance issues from head coach Dan Mullen and rising public sentiment for the coach’s ouster.
Mullen, who previously led the Gators to sterling performances on the field, had already incurred a one-year show-cause order and one year of probation from the NCAA amid recruiting violations. He also gave the university a black eye with public comments about desiring to “pack The Swamp” during the raging COVID-19 pandemic. Coupled with the failings of the team in 2022 and his refusal to significantly change his coaching staff, Mullen’s firing came swiftly before season’s end.
Following Mullen’s departure, football players shared with then-new head coach Billy Napier significant dissatisfactions about their living situations, team meals and even on-campus parking — issues ignored by Mullen’s staff. Under Stricklin’s stewardship, the Gators program also dealt with the Jim McElwain death threats fiasco and a lawsuit filed against Napier as Florida was far behind its peers getting its in order regarding name, image and likeness rights for athletes.
While quite different than the allegations against Golden, Amato and Newbauer, these additional failings have raised continued questions about Stricklin’s handling of the athletic department. These are all queries Stricklin never answered, and they were just the tip of the iceberg when it came to his failures as the leader of Florida athletics given how multiple teams have performed.
Stricklin has raised significant money for the program and overseen the construction of numerous facilities that have been crucial to the Gators competing in college sports’ arms race, but that has all come against a background of consistent failure. Stricklin’s 10 head coaching hires at Florida, as of the start of the 2024 athletic season, had only won 51% of their games, via data compiled by Thomas Goldkamp.
Napier, leader of the Gators’ most important program, is 19-19 (.500) coming off his first winning season in three years. Stricklin continued to stand confidently behind Napier entering Year 4, which may wind up paying off given the recruitment of sophomore quarterback DJ Lagway.
Under Stricklin — with the exception of the men’s basketball national championship — Florida athletics has simply been worse on the field and more embarrassing off it — all while the program has created an unsavory experience for at least some athletes and staff.
Administration clearly believes he is the best fit to continue leading the Gators going forward given the three-year extension, but the proof will be in the pudding depending how Florida performes everywhere but the hardwood.