Oklahoma AD Joe Castiglione honored by U.S. basketball writers
By Chip Rouse
Winning major college championships is difficult in and of itself, but sustaining that kind of success takes a team effort, one that goes deeper than the coaches and the student athletes.
Seventeen of Oklahoma’s 36 NCAA national championships all-time have come in the past 20 years, and the Sooners have earned a nation-best seven national titles in the past two years.
The common denominator in all that success is Oklahoma athletic director Joe Castiglione, who unquestionably is one of the best ADs in college athletics.
Throughout his 18 seasons as the head coach of the Sooners in football, Bob Stoops, who Castiglione hired in 1999, said one of the chief factors in his devotion to the University of Oklahoma, the Sooner football program and staying as long on the job as he did was the unconditional support and high respect afforded him by Castiglione and OU President David Boren.
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This past week, the U.S. Basketball Writers Association named the Oklahoma athletic director the 2018 recipient of the Katha Quinn Award, which is awarded annually to a person in college basketball who has provided a special service to the USBWA and to sportswriters who cover college basketball.
Castiglione is the 30th recipient of the award. He served as chairman of the NCAA Division I men’s basketball committee in 2015-16 and has drawn consistent high marks for the way he works with and supports sportswriters and the media who cover Oklahoma Sooner sports.
The University of Oklahoma is fortunate to have Castiglione, whose official title is vice president of intercollegiate athletic programs and director of athletics, in its employ. The former AD at the University of Missouri, Castiglione’s presence has been integral to the success the Sooners have enjoyed in multiple athletic programs over the past two decades.
In 2017 alone, Oklahoma captured national championships in men’s and women’s gymnastics (the third consecutive title for the men and back-to-back national titles for the women), women’s softball (for the second year in a row) and in men’s golf.
Castiglione has been a true asset to University of Oklahoma athletics, and it would be my hope that he remains in that capacity for as long as he wants to and is able.