ADMINISTRATION KIRBY HOCUTT Director of Athletics
BRIAN SHANNON Faculty Athletics Representative
Kirby Hocutt (@kirbyhocutt on twitter) was officially named Texas Tech’s 13th athletics director in school history on March 2, 2011. He joined the Red Raider family after spending three years at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Fla.
Brian Shannon is the Charles “Tex”Thornton Professor of Law at the Texas Tech University School of Law, where he has been a member of the law faculty since 1988. In addition to his teaching duties, Professor Shannon serves as the University’s Faculty Athletics Representative to the NCAA and the Big 12 Conference. In that role, Shannon is the Big 12 delegate to the national board for the 1A FAR association. In September 2012 he will become president of that organization, which is comprised of faculty athletics representatives at all NCAA Division I institutions in the Football Bowl Subdivision, formerly known as Division 1A.
Hocutt, who was recognized with Street & Smith’s SportsBusiness Journal Forty Under 40 Award as one of the most promising young executives in sports business, becomes the 13th athletics director in school history. Hocutt, 40, is no stranger to the Big 12 Conference as both a student-athlete at Kansas State and as an administrator at both Kansas State and Oklahoma. A four-year letterman on the Wildcat football team, Hocutt led the former Big 8 Conference in tackles his junior season, while earning All-Big 8 accolades. Following his playing career, he moved into administration at Kansas State. He later served seven years at the University of Oklahoma where he oversaw fundraising efforts for the Sooners and was the primary administrator for the OU football program. Hocutt comes to Texas Tech from the University of Miami where he was named athletics director on February 8, 2008. While at Miami, he oversaw $26 million in new projects, including the construction of a basketball practice facility as well as upgrades to Alex Rodriguez at Mark Light Field (Baseball). Under his direction in 2010, Miami recorded a program-best Graduation Success Rate of 86 percent, while all 18 teams excelled in the NCAA’s Academic Progress Rate Report (APR). At the age of 33, Hocutt got his first opportunity as an athletic director at the Division I level with the Ohio University Bobcats in 2005. At Ohio, Hocutt significantly increased fundraising by more than 75 percent, including the securing of the second largest major gift in school athletics history. He also increased season ticket sales in football by 112 percent and in men’s basketball by 50 percent. In his three years at Ohio, the school won 11 team championships, and four head coaches were recognized as conference coaches of the year. In 2006, the football team played in its first bowl game in 38 years.
Shannon earned his law degree in 1982 from the University of Texas School of Law, where he graduated first in his class, and he received a B.S. in Mathematics, summa cum laude, from Angelo State University in 1979. He formerly served as an attorney-advisor in the Office of the General Counsel to the Secretary of the Air Force at the Pentagon, and practiced law at an Austin law firm. During his years at Tech Law he has taught a wide array of classes including Contracts, Criminal Law, Property, Products Liability, Law & Psychiatry, and others. He also served as an associate dean for six years. Shannon is also an appointed member of the board for the Lubbock Regional MHMR Center, and has been on the board for the last 20 years. Shannon is an elected member of the American Law Institute, is a past president of the Lubbock County Bar Association, and was appointed by the Governor to four terms on the Texas Governor’s Committee on People with Disabilities. He is also a past chair of the State Bar of Texas Disability Issues Committee and served as an appointee of the Lt. Governor on the Task Force that re-wrote the state’s criminal competency statutes. He is the author of several books and numerous articles, and he won the Texas Bar Foundation’s Outstanding Law Journal Award in both 2002 and 2008. He was also recognized as an outstanding alumnus of Angelo State in 2004. He has filed briefs in federal courts, the Texas Supreme Court, and the United States Supreme Court. Shannon and his wife, Jeannine, have one daughter, Julia, who is a violin performance major in the School of Music and in the Honors College at Texas Tech.
Hocutt earned his bachelor’s degree from Kansas State in 1995 and his masters of education degree from the University of Oklahoma in 2001. He and his wife, Diane, have two sons: Drew and Brooks.
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