When Michael Kelly took the job as the University of South Florida’s athletic director, he was coming back to a familiar place.
He was USF’s associate athletic director for development and external relations in 2001 as the football team transitioned to a Division I-A program. After working as the chief operating officer for the College Football Playoff, he was hired by USF again in 2018 – this time as the athletic director.
At the beginning of June, he announced he would be leaving USF for the U.S. Naval Academy.
But his seven years at USF are marked by a series of accomplishments, including the construction of the Porter Family Indoor Performance Facility and the groundbreaking for USF’s on-campus stadium.
His last day at USF is Friday. He will then move north to Annapolis, Maryland, near his hometown of Washington, D.C.
WUSF’s Lily Belcher spoke with Kelly about his tenure and how he wants to be remembered.
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Kelly: I look back with a great bit of pride. We've got a situation where we were probably in the bottom couple of schools in the American [Athletic Conference] in terms of budgets and resources, and now we're nearer to the top. We've enhanced so many different facilities, like all of them have been touched in some capacity, but we built a new IPF. The stadium is well under construction for the future, so that's a big point of pride for all of us.
We've won so many conference championships and NCAA opportunities that we've really, really just thrived in recent years. We've added new sports, like lacrosse that had such an amazing first year and beach volleyball coming up here this year.
In your opinion, what's your greatest achievement at USF?
I'm probably most proud of just the overall comprehensive success, both athletically and academically.
I'm proud of the new sports that have been added under my tenure. And then, of course, I'm extremely prideful of the enhancements to what I call the athletic district.
I really believe USF is building one of the finest athletic districts in all the country. And to look out my window as we talk now and see that indoor performance facility and see those bulldozers cranking out what's going to be an awesome, awesome stadium that will be transformational for this university as a point of pride for me.
So when I look back, it's just leaving something better than when you found it, positioning it for great success for the future.
Now that there's a lot of discussion about USF’s conference, do you think that USF needs to be in a new conference, and what would it look like to take those next steps?
Well, we focus very hard on being very strong where you stand. And when I got here, we were not very strong in the American and now we [are] going to be the leader in the Learfield Cup points by far. We won the most championships in the league this year. So we're establishing ourselves as a true leader in the conference and I think that's a really good thing.
When you look at there's 32 conferences overall, I would strongly say that the American is the fifth best conference, if you will, in terms of resources and everything that we have. So we need to really make a statement there, and I think we are doing that.
And why take the job at Navy now?
My father was a midshipman and was a Navy man. I was born in that area and grew up on that base as a youngster. Because it's been ingrained in me since I was a young person, it's just an opportunity I've always looked forward to, quite frankly, as a job that I wanted to do. It's just kind of, the time came for me, personally and professionally.
To be granted this opportunity is something very, very special, but it's one that I think people understand because of the personal connection, and I think everyone certainly respects what the Naval Academy means to this country and the unique opportunity it provides.
It's very strong, obviously, as a tradition in football, which certainly appeals to me, but it's also the largest athletic department in the country with 36 varsity sports. And [this] allows me to serve not only the student athletes there, but to really serve those that are going to go out and be officers in the Navy and the Marine Corps that benefit all of us, and that appeals to me.
I just know that USF is so well-positioned with the 14 head coaches that we've got from top to bottom and the senior staff here that's been so much a part of our success here. We won't miss a beat. And that stadium is going to come up in 2027, and USF is going to keep rising, and I'll be there cheering them on.
How do you hope that you're going to be remembered?
Well, more than anything, I hope I'm just remembered as someone that really cared, cared deeply for the student athletes, to kind of pour into them and then really listen to our coaches to kind of say, 'Hey, what do we need to be successful?'
I felt it was my job to go find ways to provide those resources and then in turn, allow them to go to succeed. I think the legacy will be the stadium getting born and the IPF. So I'm certainly proud of that.
But what I truly hope I most remembered [as] is someone that truly cared about our USF student athletes and administration, and worked every day, worked very hard to deliver that, and I sleep well at night knowing that I gave it my best.
