The last calendar year has not been the most stable one for Michigan State and its athletic department.
Since August 2025, the Spartans have a.) seen their president attempt to leave for Clemson, only to execute an about-face 40 days later, b.) watched athletic director J Batt leave for Kentucky after a year and c.) fired football coach Jonathan Smith and replaced him with ex-Northwestern boss Pat Fitzgerald.
On Monday, the churn continued—this time in Michigan State’s favor.
The Spartans are hiring Western Michigan’s Dan Bartholomae as their next athletic director, according to a Monday morning report from Pete Thamel of ESPN later confirmed by the school. Bartholomae, an Indiana and Pittsburgh alum who previously worked for the Panthers and Oregon State, has served as the Broncos’ athletic director since 2022.
His move is a boon for Michigan State, and a significant blow to a Western Michigan athletic department he helped change for the better.
Michigan State fans can breathe a bit easier
Bartholomae will be the fifth athletic director the Spartans have employed in the last nine calendar years.
Mark Hollis, the first of the five, retired in 2018 as the Larry Nassar sex abuse scandal rocked the university. Bill Beekman succeeded him for three years before moving into a new role in 2021. Beekman’s replacement, Alan Haller, left his post in 2025 and now works for the NFL. That led Michigan State to lure Batt from Georgia Tech, a move that quickly backfired.
The university’s legendarily dysfunctional board of trustees remains a black mark on its public image (and ability to attract talent), but it does not seem to have prevented the Spartans from making a common-sense hire this time around. Bartholomae will in all likelihood face two daunting tasks in the years to come: evaluating Fitzgerald’s performance and preparing Michigan State for life after men’s basketball coach Tom Izzo.
At Western Michigan, uncertainty after a mini-golden age
The Broncos have thrived under Bartholomae. In 2025, Western Michigan won the national championship in men’s hockey, a longtime university passion project that has produced dozens of NHL players. It returned to the NCAA tournament in that sport in ’26, its fifth straight trip there after previously having made six NCAA tournaments ever.
In football, the Broncos won 10 games in ’25, and are preparing to return the bulk of their roster in ’26. They open at Michigan and will get an opportunity to unseat the Group of 6’s biggest brand, Boise State, on Sept. 26. Both basketball teams remain sluggish, but the men are breaking in a new hire (ex-Texas-Rio Grande Valley coach Kahil Fennell) and the women’s coach is in her second year (Kate Achter).
It’s easy to see where Bartholomae’s departure leaves a hole. Western Michigan is not an easy place for every sport to fire on all cylinders at the same time—so while the Spartans’ can see the two schools’ similar hierarchy of priorities as a blessing, the school an hour to the southwest is likely ruing it as a curse.
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