Tom Izzo "can't stand what's going on" at Michigan State University, which is losing its president and athletics director to other schools, continuing a pattern of administrative transience in East Lansing.
As reported by Sports Illustrated, Izzo has coached men’s basketball at the school under six university presidents and seven athletics directors. Now, president Kevin Guskiewicz is leaving for Clemson, and athletic director J Batt is leaving for Kentucky after only a year, and Izzo is not pleased.
“I can’t stand what’s going on,” Izzo said Monday. “I’m not gonna over-talk about it now but I am in the very near future.”
“This is just self-inflicted. We just lost the best president that might have ever been here, maybe,” Izzo said. “There’s other dominoes that get affected when things go wrong like that.”
Guskiewicz, a renowned scholar of sports medicine, had served as Michigan State’s president since 2024, SI's Patrick Andres reported, adding the departure for Clemson, a school with around a quarter of Michigan State’s endowment, surprised the world of higher education. Guskiewicz has criticized Michigan State's board of trustees for its dysfunction.
“I think 600,000 living alums better start rallying together,” Izzo said. “If there’s ever a time where we need to rally together, it’s now. And that’s all 600,000, it ain’t Tom Izzo — I’m not an alum. ... I’m a very invested stakeholder.”
Despite his long association with the Spartans, Izzo played collegiately for Northern Michigan in his native Upper Peninsula, Andres reported.
“What happened with our president is ridiculous,” Izzo finished. “He said it. We know the reasons. I’m ashamed. I’m disgusted. ... Spartan Nation better stand up.”
The conviction of MSU team doctor Larry Nassar on sex abuse charges in 2018 ended the Michigan State careers of then president Lou Anna Simon and then athletic director Mark Hollis, and its been a revolving door of administrators since. Hollis has told The Associated Press he's interest in returning to the post if the university is willing in speaking to him.
