BILLINGS — Now working under the terms of a new one-year contract he signed in early September, Montana athletic director Kent Haslam says he isn’t bothered by criticism that comes with the job.
Haslam, now in his 15th year in the AD chair in Missoula, said the critiques he hears can be and have been beneficial to the department as a whole.
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"If you get to a spot where you can't take advice, where you can't live with criticism, then you need to move on. You can't do it anymore," Haslam told MTN Sports during an interview on Friday. "And so, no, I welcome that. Now, there's always going to be nuances that people just aren't going to understand, and that's OK. A vast majority of the work I do and the things we're doing here is not seen.
"I think my message would be that we never take the support we get from our fan base for granted, and that we are constantly working at ways that we can get better, that we can improve, that we can become more efficient. So criticism is fine. No one likes to get criticized, but it also opens yourself up to look at ways like, hey, there are some things I need to do to get better."
News of Haslam's employment agreement with UM surfaced this week, and it coincides with the recent appointment of a new university president, Dr. Jeremiah Shinn, who began his tenure on July 1. Haslam's previous deal had expired at the end of June, and he remained in his position due to a five-month notification clause typical of board of regents contracts.
Since July, Haslam's future at Montana had seemed like a ticking clock during a presidential transition. But now we have more answers.
These days, the shelf life of an average Division I AD is about half of Haslam's current UM tenure. But he says he still has the stamina to remain engaged.
Related: Kent Haslam gets new 1-year contract to remain athletic director at Montana
"I absolutely have the energy that I need to perform this job," he said. "I get energized by those I'm around. There's no doubt that the days are long, and the nights are at times even longer. And emotionally you rise and fall with every win and every loss. It does not matter the sport. I'm an extremely competitive person, and I hold that in a lot of the times, which is not great for my own mental health and my own overall health. But I've not lost any of that desire to win. In fact, I feel even more obligation to make sure we deliver to Griz Nation what they absolutely deserve.
"It's a long time, but also it's a great journey, and it's a fun thing to do at a place where you're relevant and people care, and that's to me a very critical part of being successful in this job — understanding the nuances of the state of Montana, what this means to people, and that's one thing I think is a real strength of mine."
So, where can Haslam and the department improve?
If winning cures all ills, Haslam readily admits that this fall has been far from ideal. The football team, a national contender every year, is suffering through a two-game losing streak and some major questions on defense under first-year coach Bobby Kennedy.
"It's quite obvious our defense needs to get a lot better. It's pretty easy to see that," Haslam said. "The positive on all that, though, is we have a head coach who recognizes it, understands it, asks for help, wants to be given advice, wants to have direction. Coach Kennedy has the ability to self-evaluate and recognize where changes need to be made, and that's an extremely valuable character trait."
The soccer team, with an overhauled roster, is 3-11-1 under first-year coach Stuart Gore, who took over for the highly successful Chris Citowicki when the latter was hired at Washington State — and took a bunch of players with him to Pullman, Wash.
Allison Lawrence's volleyball team is 6-16 a year removed from 17 victories and its best 11-match start to a season since 1999.
All of this comes only a year after those three sports combined for the nation's longest September winning streak, becoming the only Division I school to go undefeated in a collective 16-game stretch.
And don't discount the role Montana State's meteoric rise has played in all of this. Not only did the rival Bobcats win the NCAA Division I Football Championship last season (no doubt a gut-punch to the Grizzlies) but they have also won 10 consecutive Brawl of the Wild all-sports trophies in the athletic competition between the schools.
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In recent years the Grizzlies have erected an athletic complex (the Champions Center), added a bubbled indoor practice facility for football and track and field, built a softball stadium, made much-needed locker room and other ancillary enhancements, and are now competing for dollars in the revenue-share era to, essentially, buy and retain athletes.
But Haslam acknowledges a certain disconnect.
"I think one thing we've not done a good job of is being more transparent with our fan base in explaining what we need, where we're trying to go and what we're trying to accomplish," he said. "I think that's been something that probably I've done too much of holding in, and just trying to get it done all by myself and (by) those that work here.
"You don't want to give up your trade secrets. I don't want to go out and announce, you know, how much we're spending on this person or on that person because you want to make sure that you're preserving the competitive edge that you've got. But communicating clearly to your fan base — this is where we're trying to go, and this is what we need you to help us do — is something we've got to get better at. I think president Shinn is on board with that as well."
On top of that, a lot of noise has been made in Griz circles this week after an online fan critique was released about athletic funding at Montana.
"Our fans are far more than spectators," Haslam said. "That type of passion and that type of critique gets you better and makes you better. But there are nuances that you do not see on a spreadsheet. There just are. And so I think that's what has to be taken into account.
"There have been difficult decisions that had to be made on this campus financially, and that hit every corner of campus, including athletics. And so we had to become even more self-sufficient. But I think over time, and president Shinn really could speak better to this than I could ... I've been in enough conversations with him where we've got to grow the university resources that support athletics and a lot of other things on this campus, and building that elbow room to be able to invest.
"And you're going to do that through philanthropic support, ticket sales, enrollment growth, becoming more efficient. Stop doing some things and start doing other things, and invest in things more wisely. So, I think that deep dive is fine. It's welcomed. It's part of the business. It proves the passion that people have, and I welcome that. And it's fair to look at those things."
Time will tell what the future holds for Haslam and the athletic department at large, but the AD knows the path forward in the next 10 months: to communicate more openly with fans and donors, to heed constructive criticism, and to fight for resources to deliver the results Griz Nation expects.
