After his unceremonious exit from Rocky Top, John Currie is back in the Power Five athletic game.
Following up on speculation that surfaced earlier this weekend, Wake Forest announced that Currie will take over as the university’ athletic director. Currie will replace the retiring Ron Wellman, who spent nearly three decades in that post for the Demon Deacons.
Currie, a 1993 graduate of the university, will officially take over the athletics department at Wake on May 1.
“Today is a very humbling day and one that my wife, Mary Lawrence, and I are grateful for the confidence that President Hatch and the Board of Trustees has shown us to make this dream come true,” said Currie in a statement. “Ron Wellman has been my long-time mentor and is responsible for everything I have in my professional life – the most important of which is the ethical foundation that has sustained me over the last 25 years.
“The many great accomplishments achieved by Wake Forest over the last 185 years has happened because of our collective spirit, energy, creativity and initiative channeled together – students, faculty, administration, alumni, parents, the Winston-Salem community and beyond. I look forward to reacquainting myself with old friends and collaborating with new ones to better understand our challenges and opportunities.”
Currie spent a little over nine months as the athletic director at Tennessee before he was fired in December of 2018 in the wake (get it?) of a botched and bungled search for a head football coach that included the Greg Schiano branch of the fiasco. Prior to his very brief stint in Knoxville, Currie served as the athletic director at Kansas State for eight years.
