All good things in life eventually come to an end, as the centuries-old saying goes, and athletic director Joe Castiglione has been an extraordinarily good thing for the University of Oklahoma.
ESPN's Pete Thamel broke the story on Monday that OU's longtime athletic director plans to retire during the upcoming academic year. The official announcement is expected to come at a press conference scheduled for 9 a.m. CT on Tuesday.
Castiglione was hired as the Oklahoma AD in July 1998 after five years in the same role at Missouri. While Castiglione is responsible for the hiring of a number of the winningest and most successful head coaches in Oklahoma athletic history, perhaps the the most prescient hire in the sequence of events is the one made by OU president David Boren in bringing Castiglione on board.
The 67-year-old Castiglione came to Norman at an unsettled time in the athletic program. The Oklahoma football program had suffered through consecutive losing seasons in 1996 and 1997, and that extended to a third in Castiglione's first year. That is something that had happened just twice before in the 49 years between 1946 (Bud Wilkinson's first season) and 1995.
Former Sooner player John Blake was out as head coach, and Bob Stoops became Castiglione's first major hire as the replacement for Blake. Every Oklahoma fan knows how that turned out, but Stoops was just one of several exceptional OU head coaching hires over the years.
Other notable members of the Castiglione coaching-hire tree include Lincoln Riley in football, men's gymnastics coach Mark Williams, women's gymnastics coach K.J. Kindler, men's basketball coach Lon Kruger and men's golf coach Ryan Hybl.
Other hires by Castiglione for major OU athletic programs included Jeff Capel in basketball, along with current men's and women's head coaches Porter Moser and Jennie Baranczyk, and Sunny Golloway and current head coach Skip Johnson in baseball.
If you're wondering why Patty Gasso, head coach of the eight-time national champion Oklahoma softball team is not on the list, it's because she was hired in 1995 by then-OU athletic director Donnie Duncan. But all eight national championships have come on Castiglione's watch.
Brent Venables is also a Castiglione hire. The timing of the OU athletic director's retirement could have an impact on Venables' future at OU, depending on how things go with the football team in the fall.
Oklahoma has won 26 national championships under Castiglione's leadership and 117 conference titles. Eighteen of the 26 have come from coaches hired by Castiglione.
Joe Castiglione's biggest coaching hires at Oklahoma
Bob Stoops
Stoops was Castiglione's first major coaching hire and arguably the best. He served as the Oklahoma head coach for 18 seasons, the second-longest in Sooner football history, and won a total of 191 games, the most in program history. Stoops took four Oklahoma teams to the BCS national championship game and won a national title in 2000 in his second season at OU. He also stepped in on an interim basis after Lincoln Riley accepted the coaching job at USC and led the Sooners to a bowl win over Oregon. Twelve of Stoops' 18 Oklahoma teams won 11 or more games, including a perfect 13-0 season in 2000.
K.J. Kindler
This year will be K.J. Kindler's 20th season as the Oklahoma women's gymnastics coach. Since her hiring by Castiglione in 2006, the Sooners have won seven national championships, including back-to-back national titles in 2016-17 and 2022-23. Oklahoma is the reigning national champion, having won the title again this spring. They have 13 top-3 national finishes under Kindler, along with 15 straight NCAA regional championships. Kindler is a four-time national and Big 12 Coach of the Year.
Mark Williams
Williams was hired in 2000 to lead the men's gymnastics program at Oklahoma. The Sooners were already on the national map in men's gymnastics prior to Williams' arrival, but over the last 26 years, Williams has taken the program to even greater heights. Under Williams' direction, the Oklahoma has won nine national championships, along with 10 national runner-up finishes.
The Sooners have a sensational .911 winning percentage with Williams as head coach. The longtime OU head coach was inducted into the USA Gymnastics Hall of Fame in 2015 and was head coach of Team USA for the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro in 2016.
Ryan Hybl
Castiglione saw something in the 30-year-old Ryan Hybl when he brought the two-time Georgia All-American to Oklahoma in 2009 to lead the men's golf program.
In the 16 seasons since, Hybl has guided Oklahoma to 49 team victories, including the 2017 national championship, the school's second in the sport. The 49 wins rank seventh among active NCAA Division I coaches and 17th all-time. Oklahoma has been to 15 consecutive NCAA Golf Championships under Hybl and made eight NCAA Championship match-play appearances. The brother of former Oklahoma quarterback Nate Hybl (2000-02) was inducted into the Golf Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 2024.
Lon Kruger
Lon Kruger was hired as head coach of men's basketball at Oklahoma beginning with the 2011-12 season. Kruger had been a college head coach for 25 seasons for five different teams, four of which he had taken to the NCAA Tournament, before he was approached by Castiglione to become the head coach of the Sooners. It wasn't an easy sell on Castiglione's part. Kruger was the head coach at UNLV at the time and wasn't sure he wanted to take another coaching job and start over with a new team.
We all know how this ended, with the former Kansas State player and head coach agreeing to come back to the Midwest to become head coach of the Oklahoma Sooners. Kruger ended up staying at OU 10 seasons, longer than any of his previous coaching stops, and won 195 games, third-most in program history. The Sooners made seven NCAA Tournament appearances under Kruger, including the Final Four in 2016.
Although a timeline has not been publicly revealed, it is expected that Castiglione will stay on in his active role until a replacement is hired. After that, he will stay connected with the university as athletic director emeritus until June 30, 2028.
Castiglione is entering his 28th year as Oklahoma's athletic director and is the longest running active athletic director in major college sports. His active role will truly be missed, but he leaves a long-lasting legacy of major contributions to Oklahoma athletics and to all of college sports.
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