Washington State gets its man

PULLMAN – Bill Moos said yes Monday to Washington State University’s offer to replace Jim Sterk as athletic director, multiple sources confirmed to The Spokesman-Review on Tuesday.

Moos told WSU president Elson S. Floyd he would accept an offer, made last Thursday. Terms of the contract have not been released, though sources have said Moos’ deal will be for more than Sterk’s nearly $300,000 in base salary, deferred compensation and other income.

“It’s one he’s quite comfortable with,” a source close to Moos said about the compensation package. “He’s just very excited about taking the job, because he’s an alum and a former student-athlete. He can’t wait to get started.”

Moos, who earned the WSU Alumni Achievement Award in 2004, is expected to start May 1.

Sterk, who came to WSU in 2000, was named athletic director at San Diego State last week. Senior associate athletic director Anne McCoy is serving as interim A.D.

Washington State has scheduled a 2 p.m. press conference today in Pullman to officially announce the hiring and introduce Moos as the school’s seventh athletic director in the past 50 years.

Moos, a former Washington State football player who earned all Pac-8 honors his senior year in 1972, was formerly the athletic director at the University of Oregon, starting in Eugene in 1995.

While at Oregon, the athletic budget grew from $18 million to $41 million and the Ducks won 13 Pac-10 Conference championships in a variety of sports.

When he and Oregon parted in late 2006, Moos signed a 10-year agreement worth $2 million – with payments yearly – that limited where he could work. The agreement, in which Moos agreed not to become an athletic director or similar position at a BCS school west of the Mississippi, stipulated Moos would earn the yearly stipend for 10 years, according to published reports.

The schools covered became a bone of contention in December, when Moos, who grew up in Edwall, Wash., was a finalist for the athletic director spot at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, a member of the Mountain West Conference.

Moos was reportedly offered the job, but Oregon labeled UNLV a BCS school and threatened to cut off the payments. Since then, Moos and Oregon have been in discussions aimed at reaching an amicable solution, talks a source said were still ongoing.

Moos was not available for comment.

He and wife Kendra moved just south of Spokane in Valleyford, a little more than an hour north of Pullman, shortly after Moos resigned at Oregon in November 2006. The couple has five children, including a son, Bo, who plays football at Arizona State, another son and three daughters.

A first-team All-Pac-8 offensive lineman as a senior in 1972, Moos graduated from WSU the next spring. He was named an assistant athletic director in 1982 under Sam Jankovich and was promoted to associate athletic director in 1988 under Livengood.

Moos left WSU in 1990 to become athletic director at Montana.

“Bill truly loves Washington State, I don’t think there is any question about it,” said Jankovich, WSU athletic director from 1976 to 1984. “It will be the toughest job he ever had, because Montana succeeded before Bill and after Bill and Oregon, they had a lot of help from the politicians and vice presidents and everything else.

“(WSU) will be a true challenge for him. But if he’s willing to take it on, you can’t doubt his love for Washington State and the Cougars.”

The Cougars have the smallest athletic budget in the Pac-10 at around $30 million and operated in the red last fiscal year, which ended June 30, for the first time in Sterk’s tenure.

WSU is also in the midst of a fund-raising campaign to add capacity to Martin Stadium in the form of premium seating. The Phase III project, which Sterk stated would be ready for the 2012 football season, hasn’t met needed financial goals laid out by the university to begin construction.