University of Toledo
Hired as the youngest athletic director in the FBS in 2022, Bryan Blair has made waves in a short time at Toledo.
Blair, who played football at Wofford before attending law school at South Carolina, previously worked at his law school alma mater, Rice and Washington State, where he served among the senior staffers for now-Washington Athletic Director Pat Chun.
Bryan Blair
Vice President and Director of Athletics, University of Toledo
Age: 39
Born: Bennettsville, S.C.
Education: Wofford College, B.A., history; University of South Carolina School of Law, J.D.
Family: Spouse, Jenna; children, Brielle (5), Beau (3)
Advice to my 20-year-old self: Enjoy the ride because it flies by and one day you may long for aspects of the job/role you have now. Don’t let others define your dreams. … Opportunity is all around you, and with a little bit of curiosity and intentional relationship building, you can maximize your surroundings in ways you never could have imagined.
App I use most: YouTube.
First social media platform I signed up for: MySpace.
Social media platform I use/follow most today: Twitter/X.
Person in sports business I’d most like to meet: Constance Schwartz-Morini. I’m impressed from afar by her ability to be a visionary, but also partner with key personalities to bring those visions to life, even when others can’t quite see/understand the vision.
“To me, one of our biggest emphasis is two parts,” Blair said. “One, continue to have more and more success and find ways to fuel this animal because I think we’re just scratching the surface of what we can do. [And second], to tell the nation the story of Toledo athletics.”
Now in his fourth year at Toledo, Blair has overseen one of the Mid-American Conference’s most impressive athletic departments. The Rockets football team has gone 20-8 with two division titles in two years, while the school won a record six MAC championships in 2022-23.
Blair also has made efforts to be on the cutting edge at Toledo. The school developed the MAC’s first NIL collective. Toledo’s 1923 Society, a philanthropic initiative designed to generate revenue to support Rockets athletes in academic, athletic and personal pursuits, eclipsed 50 members with gifts of $25,000 or more, including more than 20 first-time major gift donors.
“Those of us that are maybe a little bit younger in the industry are not bound by what we used to do or what we had to do or tradition,” Blair said. “And certainly being at an institution that’s willing to lean forward and embrace it [is helpful]. … I think that this new change in landscape benefits those with a little bit of a cleaner slate in terms of painting what the future can be unrestricted by what the past was.” — Ben Portnoy
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