Bracky Brett, a 20-year veteran in the Mississippi State University athletic department, was named the interim athletic director last week, following the departure of John Cohen for Auburn University.
MSU President Mark Keenum tapped Brett for the position on Oct. 31.
“I was asked, a week ago, to serve as your interim athletic director,” Brett said while addressing members of the Starkville Rotary Club on Monday at Hilton Garden Inn. “I was actually sitting in the doctor’s office, early that morning, when the president’s office called and said Keenum would like to see you.”
Brett was serving as executive senior associate athletic director for compliance when he received the call up.
He immediately hit the ground running as well. He met with the more than 200 employees in the athletic department the following day.
“The first thing I did Tuesday morning is I set up a department-wide Webex to talk to the entire department,” he said. “I told all of our employees in our department, ‘Look, I don’t know how long I’m going to be here. But all I need is everybody to do their job. I am going to do my job the best I can, if you need me, let me know. I just need you to go back to work because our student athletes deserve that.”
He emphasized the importance of taking care of the athletes.
“The second thing we did is we set up meetings with every one of our teams,” he said. “I wanted to speak to all of our athletes, face-to-face, and tell them, ‘We’re here for you.’”
Brett said that his goal is to keep the department moving forward. He said there has always only been one goal, and he is not looking to change that.
“We are here to win championships. Don’t lose sight of that,” he said. “All of our kids are here for that.”
It is unclear what role Brett will play in the search for a new athletic director. MSU has hired an executive search firm to lead the effort.
“I have not had any conversation with Keenum about that process,” Brett said. “We are one week in and just trying to keep everybody working and moving. We’ve had no discussions about that process.”
He said that he is not focused on that right now. Instead he is focused on maintaining the department.
“It’s business as usual, we are just moving along,” he said.
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