Brown: Is AD Jen Cohen in Over Her Head at UW?

Posted on October 26, 2021


  By Leah Brown, SuperWest Sports

In the waning moments of Friday night’s game between Washington and Arizona, the ESPN broadcast crew wondered if the Huskies’ 21-16 win on the road against Arizona would quell the critics among the UW faithful.

True, the Dawgs did give Jimmy Lake his first win as head coach away from Husky Stadium, replete with a spirited rally late in the second half to secure a victory.

However, the questions and concerns among the fan base remain: UW’s ability to score and game readiness, to name a couple.

Arizona’s Stevie Rocker Jr. | Christopher Hook/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

On Friday, the team was held scoreless in the first half by an Arizona team which is on a 19-game losing streak, and which had not held an opponent scoreless in a half since November 11, 2017, against Oregon State.

This was the fourth time in Jimmy Lake’s tenure that Washington has been held scoreless for a full half.

Lake

Undoubtedly, the Wildcats are a much better team than their winless record would indicate, but the Huskies’ consistent struggle to be adequately mentally prepared shows up in the mistakes they make—allowing a first quarter blocked punt, for example, and consistently under-throwing passes.

Jimmy Lake’s season-long struggles on Montlake have been well-documented, and critics always look at the coach first.

That is reasonable enough, but some are wondering if the athletic department, which bears ultimate responsibility, has contributed to the problems on the field.

Jen Cohen was named the athletic director at the University of Washington on May 24, 2016.  She has worked at UW in a variety of capacities since 1998, with a focus on development.

Cohen

She holds a Bachelor’s degree from San Diego State, as well as a master’s degree in physical education with an emphasis in sports administration from Pacific Lutheran University.

Cohen is also a lifelong Husky fan, popular with her colleagues and has reportedly done well at fund-raising.

But it seems fair to ask how her credentials and experience compare with those of her peers.

Eight of the current 12 Pac-12 ADs had Division I AD experience at other schools before taking their current positions.  This is what the backgrounds of the four lacking prior AD experience look like.

• Ray Anderson, Arizona State:  Graduate of Stanford and Harvard Law, NFL Executive VP, Chief Administrative Officer of the Atlanta Falcons.  Also ran a sports law practice and sports agency business.

Mullens

• Rob Mullens, Oregon:  Although not the AD at Kentucky, had extensive athletic department experience in a variety of roles at the school, as well as at Maryland and Miami.

• Rick George, Colorado:  Chief Operating Officer of Texas Rangers, promoted to president of business operations; coaching and or athletic department experience at Illinois, Colorado and Vanderbilt.

• Jen Cohen, Washington:  Athletic Department experience at UW since 1998. Other athletic department experience at University of Puget Sound, Pacific Lutheran, and Texas Tech.

In short, 11 of the 12 Pac-12 ADs either had served as a Division I AD in at least one other school or had senior level sports management experience before accepting their current posts.

Seven of the 12 also had experience as collegiate athletes and/or in collegiate-level coaching.

UW athletic director Jen Cohen | Jeff Halstead/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

Obviously, the outlier here is the Huskies’ Jen Cohen.  For much of the last 25 years, however, top-level athletic department positions were not fully open to female candidates.

Thanks to Title IX, those barriers have been falling in recent years, but many capable women have been passed over in the interim.

A more relevant comparison might consider the other female athletic directors of Power 5 Conference institutions.  Not surprisingly, perhaps, there are only three:

• Sandy Barbour, Penn State (hired 2014)
• Heather Lyke, Pittsburgh (hired 2017)
• Carla Williams, Virginia (hired 2017)

Barbour

Barbour, Lyke and Williams were all collegiate athletes.

Prior to Penn State Sandy Barbour was the AD at Cal and Tulane. Before landing the job at Pitt, Heather Lyke was an athletic director executive at Ohio State, and before that an assistant AD for compliance at Cincinnati.

Carla Wiliams came to UVA from Georgia, her alma mater. In Athens, she worked her way from assistant women’s basketball coach under Andy Landers to deputy associate athletic director.

The qualifications the above ADs have in common fall into three categories:

1) athletic director experience prior to current position
2) experience in either playing or coaching
3) experience under various organizational athletic departments

Most of them have two of those qualifiers; Cohen had none—which, to be fair, does not necessarily show that she was not the best candidate.

She is clearly very talented and may possess other qualities that more than compensate for the possible deficits mentioned here.

We don’t know.

What we do know is that with the Huskies struggling on the football field, the athletic director must come under scrutiny along with the coaches.




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