DeKALB, Ill. – Northern Illinois University Vice President and Director of Athletics and Recreation Sean T. Frazier will serve as president of the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA) in 2025-26 following his appointment by the NACDA Board of Directors at the association’s annual convention in Orlando earlier this month. 

Frazier, who begins his 13th year at NIU in July, has served as a NACDA Officer since 2023, was a member of the NACDA Executive Committee from 2016-20 and spent three years as president of the Minority Opportunities and Athletic Association (MOAA) from 2010-13. He succeeds past president Ross Bjork of Ohio State. 

“I am overwhelmed by the overall vote of confidence from NACDA – this is a full circle moment for me,” Frazier said. “We have a lot of work to do, and it is going to take a lot of commitment from all of us. Especially during these times in college athletics, the practitioner’s voice is extremely important. For me, and many of us, it’s about the student-athlete experience, the leadership, the staff … the things that make our profession the greatest of all time. As my mentor Mr. Cleary once said to me – at the end of the day, this is not too hard, but you have to be consistent and true to yourself. I’m excited about the journey – I will not let you down.”

Over the last 12 years, Frazier has guided the Huskies to historic milestones competitively, academically and socially, and in 2024-25, set a course for NIU Athletics’ future with the announcement that NIU will join the Mountain West in football and the Horizon League for 14 of its sports programs, beginning in 2025-26. This forward-thinking response to the changing college athletics landscape positions the Huskies for sustainability and continued success on the competition fields and off. 

Under Frazier, NIU Athletics’ umbrella has expanded to include the NIU Convocation Center, NIU Recreation and the Huskie Marching Band. The Huskies continue to re-set the bar in terms of academic achievement, have claimed 14 Mid-American Conference Championships – the most under leadership of any NIU athletic director – and have broken fundraising records in support of Huskie student-athletes.  

Frazier’s record of success at NIU has led to national recognition. In 2021-22, he was named one of five finalists for the Athletics Director of the Year by Sports Business Journal and in 2023, he was recognized by Crain’s Chicago Business. In May 2024, Frazier became a Hall of Famer as he was inducted into the Suffolk County Sports Hall of Fame on his native Long Island.

In 2021, Frazier joined the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee (USOPC) College Sports Sustainability Think Tank which convened leaders from across the collegiate, Olympic and Paralympic landscape. He has written numerous papers, presented on topics of diversity, leadership and hiring at national meetings and served on many NCAA committees. In addition, NIU became the first two-time recipient of the NCAA and MOAA Award for Diversity and Inclusion, earning the honor in 2016 and in 2022. 

A former football student-athlete at the University of Alabama, Frazier has 27 years of overall experience as a director of athletics at the NCAA Division I, II and III levels, as an administrator at two Division I universities, as a coach and as a student-athlete. Prior to NIU, Frazier spent six years in senior leadership roles at the University of Wisconsin (UW) and was promoted to deputy director of athletics in 2011. Prior to Wisconsin, Frazier served as director of athletics at Merrimack College in North Andover, Mass., was the director of athletics and recreation at Clarkson University in Potsdam, N.Y. and led the athletics and recreation department at Manhattanville College in Purchase, N.Y.

 

He enters his term as president of NACDA during a time of monumental change in intercollegiate athletics as leaders across the country adapt to the revenue sharing model and other terms finalized by the approved settlement of the House case. In addition, Name, Image and Likeness (NIL), the transfer portal and adjustments to the College Football Playoff (CFP) continue to affect the daily business of college athletics. 

— NIU —

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• UNC athletes in football, men’s basketball, women’s basketball, and baseball will receive a share of revenue starting July 1st.
• UNC will increase its athletic scholarships from 338 to 532 across all sports.
• UNC is exploring new revenue streams like naming rights and sponsorships to offset increased costs.

University of North Carolina athletes will be paid revenue directly by the school, beginning July 1, in addition to income they already earn for use of their name, image and likeness.

Show Transcript

Despite being two months out from opening the 2025 college football season against Alabama, Florida State’s quarterback, Tommy Castellanos, has already called out the Crimson Tide.

“I’m excited, man,” Castellanos said in an interview with On3. “People, I don’t know if they know, but you go back and watch every first game that I played in, we always start fast. I dreamed of moments like this. I dreamed of playing against Alabama. They don’t have Nick Saban to save them. I just don’t see them stopping me.”

It’s a bold statement from a player who hasn’t had the most decorated college football career to this point and has yet to play a snap for his new team. But, there’s no questioning Castellanos’s confidence. 

He transferred to Florida State ahead of his senior season. It’s his third ACC school after spending two years at Boston College and one at Central Florida, and Castellanos is trying to make a name for himself off the field to drum up the anticipation for the game on the field. 

In 2023, he completed 57.3% of his pass attempts for 2,248 yards, 15 touchdowns and 14 interceptions as a sophomore. He then took a step up in his junior season, improving his accuracy to 61.5%, while throwing 18 touchdowns and five interceptions through the first eight games of the season. But, midway through the season, Boston College lost three consecutive games, and then Castellanos got hurt against Syracuse, and his backup, Grayson James, replaced him and helped the Eagles break their losing streak. 

James’ performance pushed him ahead of Castellanos on the depth chart and, to deal with that decision to change quarterbacks, Castellanos took some time away from the team, while James finished out the season as the starter and led the Eagles to a Bowl Game.

That Syracuse game ended up being Castellanos’ last for Boston College. Now, he’s got a fresh start at Florida State, where he’s trying to make some waves, and introduce himself to the Seminoles’ biggest opponent well before the season even starts.  

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Click here to view Trev Alberts’ Monday press conference.

Trev Alberts’ job title is Texas A&M’s Director of Athletics. In some ways, tailor maybe should be added.

That’s a reaction to how Alberts described the task he and A&M face in navigating the changing future of college athletics.

“(It’s) how to thread the needle between tradition and modernization,” Alberts said in a Monday meeting with local reporters inside a third-floor conference room at Kyle Field.

Maintaining traditions at A&M won’t be a problem. Successfully modernizing A&M’s athletic department to excel in the new era of Name, Imagine & Likeness (NIL) and revenue sharing projects to be much more challenging.

Reacting to the recent House v. NCAA settlement, which allows NCAA member schools to directly pay student-athletes, Alberts announced that A&M will distribute $18 million to football, men’s and women’s basketball, baseball, softball and volleyball.

A popular national template suggests directing 75 percent of funds to football, 15 percent to basketball, five percent to baseball and five percent to women’s sports.

“Some institutions have chosen to use that (75-15-5-5 model) as a template for their institution,” Alberts said. “Our percentages don’t reflect that. We’ve chosen to make market-based decisions based on revenue.”

The distribution could cause derision within athletic programs. Coaches in different programs could be competing against each other to get more funding.

Alberts said that hasn’t been a problem at A&M, but he has heard that has been an issue for other colleagues.

Alberts declined to reveal the percentages to be shared with A&M’s athletes for competitive reasons. But football is the only revenue-producing sport at Texas A&M, so it stands to reason that the majority of A&M’s shared revenue will go to football players.

“I’m not going to run out and tell you exactly what the numbers are and what the percentages are because there’s a competitive piece to that, right?” he said. “But I think you’re going to start to figure out where the numbers lie.”

He said in a year there may be more data available that provides at least guidelines how players perhaps should be compensated not only by sport, but by position.

Alberts acknowledged that some programs could be at a disadvantage to conference opponents.

For example, Kentucky, which puts great emphasis on basketball, figures to share a greater percentage of revenue with its basketball players than many other SEC programs.

“You’re not going to knowingly put any of your programs at a competitive disadvantage,” Alberts said. “But I think it’s absolutely true you could find yourselves in a situation — based on the priorities of the investments — that some of your programs will have less rev share than some of their competitors.”

Some of the differences, at least, could potentially be offset by greater NIL opportunities.

Alberts said if a program, like football, has players earning substantial money though fair-market NIL deals then some funds could be redirected to other sports.

To enhance those NIL possibilities, Alberts said a new position is being created to help locate NIL opportunities and ensure they meet the standard “fair market value” as determined by Deloitte, which will act as a third-party clearinghouse for NIL deals.

“We’re not ready to announce a name, but we are hiring a new position that will be an associate AD reporting directly to me that is an attorney,” Alberts said. “It’s basically, what is our strategy and how do we leverage every one of our assets?

“If we’re able to get fair market value NIL deals at a certain level, we may not need as much rev share there. We can put the rev share over at this sport because they’re not as successful. So, that’s why I think that fair market value NIL strategy is going to be really important to our future.”

Alberts later added: “We have to be better than our peers. To me, that’s the differentiator in the game. That’s why we’re going to throw a lot of energy and effort in making sure we have a good strategy there (NIL).”

Alberts is hopeful that a sound, effective strategy could launch A&M to great competitive success.

“This is our time,” he said. “If we have the courage to make tough decisions and act and modernize in some areas, I think Texas A&M can separate and do things we’ve never done here before.

“That’s why we’re all here. The opportunities are here at Texas A&M to do things that most people can’t do because of scale, because of resources and other things.”