Canzano: Change keeps coming for Washington Huskies

President Ana Mari Cauce stepping away in June 2025.

Washington will get a new university president in 2025. (Photo: Serena Morones)

It’s always seemed strange that university presidents and chancellors are at the steering wheel of college athletics. Some of them don’t know a first down from a touchdown, and worst of all, are too arrogant to admit it.

Ana Mari Cauce made it official on Wednesday. The University of Washington president will step down in June 2025. It was the latest reminder that campus presidents and conference commissioners come and go. It’s college sports fans who get left to deal with the fallout of their decisions.

Cauce wrote me a letter early last college football season. I’d ripped the Pac-12’s CEO Group in a column earlier that week for its failure of leadership. That room of conference presidents was supposed to be the last line of defense for the 108-year-old conference. It was supposed to be filled with academics who understood that college athletics were just part of the campus experience, not the driving force.

We all know now that the Pac-12 CEO Group turned into a disjointed, double-crossing, back-stabbing pack of gunslingers. The leaders may have smiled at each other above the table, but they were pointing pistols at each other beneath it.

“You are 100 percent correct that all of us presidents, and especially those like myself who had been serving on the executive board, bear responsibility for any and all decisions that resulted in the devaluation of our conference that led to eight teams leaving,” Cauce wrote in her letter to me.

UW’s president told me she accepted full responsibility for choosing to move to the Big Ten, “even at a partial share.” She added that the Apple TV deal included no guarantee of appearances on linear TV and didn’t believe it would have kept the Pac-12 together long-term because it contained an exit clause.

Wrote Cauce: “I made — and take full responsibility for making — the decision that was best for our university. But you are correct: There was nothing pretty about it, or the weeks leading up to it.”

Cauce’s letter to me felt strange, in part, because it arrived unsolicited. Best I can tell, she read my column and felt some guilt over the break-up of the Pac-12. Or maybe she was trying to absolve herself of the blame.

Canzano: Mailbag begins with letter from Pac-12 president

Whatever the case, Washington is with the ‘haves’ now. But let’s check the scoreboard in a decade to see if Cauce got it right. On that note, I keep thinking about something John Steinbeck wrote: “There ain’t no sin and there ain’t no virtue. There’s just stuff people do.”

Maybe Cauce was just — doing.

Long ago, the presidents and chancellors ceded control of their conferences to commissioners — who also come and go, it turns out. Those commissioners handed the control to television networks in exchange for a pile of money. I keep thinking about how die-hard fans get stuck living with the consequences of those decisions.

Some UW fans may be thrilled about the move to the Big Ten. I’m certainly intrigued by some of the new football matchups. But Mike Aresco, the retired commissioner of the American Athletic Conference, said on Wednesday of the Big Ten and SEC’s increasing stranglehold: “There has to be some concern for the greater good of college athletics.”

I don’t know what’s going to happen to college athletics but the Big 12, ACC, and G5 schools find themselves boxed in by the SEC and Big Ten. That dynamic is problematic. I’m not alone in wondering if large swaths of the country are going to end up alienated by a system now tipped in the favor of the 30 or 40 best brands.

Washington has a new head football coach, a new men’s basketball coach, a new athletic director, and will soon get a new president. I have to think some of the change — particularly Cauce’s departure — will be viewed favorably by UW fans. She was not viewed by some as a sports-friendly person or easy to work with.

I’m picking on Cauce today. I could have written this column about any of the Pac-12’s presidents and chancellors, particularly ones who abandoned their posts for other schools during those fateful media rights negotiations. Cauce did not act alone.

It has become evident in the last few years that campus leaders aren’t as invested in the outcome as long-time coaches, former players, and life-long fans. The new president hires won’t outlast generational fans, either. They’re just passing through, too. But it raises a fair point about how important these presidential hires are, not just to faculty and students on campus but to the athletic departments that fashion themselves as Fortune 500 corporations.

I was told several months ago that Cauce planned to step down and return to her position at UW as a faculty member. I reported it. I only knew because Cauce had confided in some of her trusted colleagues, who shared it with me.

I wondered at the time if Cauce’s decision to ditch the Pac-12 was made a little bit easier because she knew she was leaving, too.

Maybe she’ll write me a letter.

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