Northwestern Appoints Derrick Gragg New Athletic Director

EVANSTON, IL — Derrick Gragg, a former Division I athlete, athletic director, and NCAA senior vice president, has been named the new athletic director at Northwestern, the school announced on Friday.

Gragg replaces Mike Polisky, who resigned from the position just nine days after he was appointed to take over the position from Jim Phillips, who left Northwestern to become the commissioner of the Atlantic Coast Conference. Polisky resigned amid controversy, as he was one of four defendants named in a lawsuit by a former Northwestern cheerleader who said she was sexually harassed at Northwestern booster and alumni events.

Gragg joined the NCAA in 2020 after serving as athletic director at the University of Tulsa and Eastern Michigan University. Northwestern announced Friday that Gragg will be introduced at a news conference on Monday. He will begin work on July 1, the school said in a news releaseannouncing his hiring.

Northwestern linguistics professor Robert Gundlach will continue to serve as interim athletic director until July 1.

While with the NCAA, Gragg served as the chief diversity and inclusion officer. At the time of his hiring, Gragg was praised by NCAA President Mark Emmert for his experience, expertise and leadership skills.

In his previous posts, Gragg — who has previous athletic administration experience at Vanderbilt, Michigan and the University of Missouri — built a reputation for working with athletes while also tacking issues that are part of the college athletics landscape.

"I am thrilled and humbled to join the Northwestern University family at this pivotal moment in college athletics," Gragg said in a news release Friday. "My career has been shaped by an unwavering belief in the potential of student-athletes to excel in all areas. These young people need more support than ever in the midst of challenging, changing and exciting times. I look forward to joining an incredible roster of coaches and staff in Evanston on this collaborative mission to help our Wildcats achieve at the highest level as students, as athletes and as people."

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His hiring comes a month after Polisky resigned from the post at Northwestern. University President Morton Shapiro said he would announce plans to appoint a replacement in the next few months. In a news release on Friday, Shapiro called Gragg the "ideal person" for the job of overseeing Northwestern athletics.

"It was essential for us to find the right leader for the next chapter at Northwestern — someone who can build both academic and athletic excellence at a time of rapid change in the intercollegiate sports landscape, and also someone who can create the best possible environment for students, staff and coaches," Schapiro said. "After talking extensively with Derrick, it was clear that he was the ideal person for the job."

WBEZ reported last month that in a secretly taped meeting Polisky admitted he had not been "empathetic" enough in dealing with allegations of sexual harassment that were brought to his attention.

"I think that that might have alleviated some of the angst and frustration from some of the members of the cheer team,” Polisky, who had been at Northwestern for 11 years, said in the meeting, according to WBEZ.

“My reaction, I think, might have been not as sympathetic as they deserved it to be. I was more in the mindset of, ‘Oh my gosh, OK, let’s start fixing this,’ just being a little bit more regimented in my response. And what I really needed to say repeatedly was, ‘I’m so, so sorry, and this should never have occurred to you.’ And that’s the kind of empathy that I wished that I had expressed.”

Shapiro wrote in a letter to the university committee that he had named Polisky as the athletic director after the athletic administrator had been found not guilty of violating any university policies. Still, in the meeting that was taped secretly, Polisky said he felt sickened by the allegations that were brought by the former cheerleader and others.

"There was also alleged inappropriate touching and different things at some of the tailgates, and what I felt in my head, what I felt in my stomach,” Polisky said, according to WBEZ. “Again, as a father of two daughters, this cannot happen to anybody. And by the way, our mascot, we came to learn, also had been inappropriately touched at tailgates out on the road. It’s not acceptable.”