Oklahoma athletic director Joe Castiglione will retire from his full-time role during the upcoming school year, bringing an end to the longest-tenured run for a current AD in major college sports, sources told ESPN.
Upon the hiring of his successor, according to sources, Castiglione will stay on as athletic director emeritus.
Castiglione is entering his 28th year at Oklahoma, a span that has seen 26 national titles, 117 league titles and the Sooners’ move from the Big 12 to the SEC. The timing of the announcement prior to this season, sources said, will give Oklahoma officials adequate runway to hire a replacement during the upcoming school year. The timing of the move will allow OU to make a hire in the upcoming months and transition with Castiglione on campus.
Castiglione, 67, initiated the conversation about his retirement with school officials nearly a month ago, per sources, and they landed on this plan together.
That job would allow Castiglione to continue to work on special projects at the university, as he intends to live locally.
In his nearly three decades at Oklahoma, he earned a reputation as one of the industry’s most respected leaders. He won Athletic Director of the Year by Sports Business Journal in 2009 and shared the award in 2018. He also won the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics award for the nation’s top athletic director in 2000 and 2018.
One remarkable statistic perhaps best sums up his impact on the college athletics industry: In his time at Oklahoma and Missouri, 32 of Castiglione’s employees have gone on to become athletic directors or commissioners.
Castiglione spent five seasons as the athletic director at Missouri before arriving in Norman in July 1998. He hired Bob Stoops as football coach prior to the 1999 season and that launched a run of dominance, which included the 2000 national title and 10 Big 12 titles under Stoops, who became Oklahoma’s all-time winningest coach. That hire started a run of 26 consecutive bowl games for OU.
In Castiglione’s tenure, Oklahoma reached the Final Four in men’s basketball both in 2002 under Kelvin Sampson and 2016 under Lon Kruger. The women’s team reached three Final Fours. The school’s softball program has emerged as the country’s best during Castiglione’s time, winning eight national titles under coach Patty Gasso since 2000.
Castiglione served on myriad committees over the decades, including the College Football Playoff committee, the men’s basketball selection committee and baseball selection committee. Per his Oklahoma bio, he’s the only athletic director to have served on all three of those committees. Over that time, he has earned a role as one of the industry’s most powerful and respected voices.
Castiglione’s decision comes at a time when Oklahoma’s football program is in a slump, as it finished with losing records in two of the past three seasons under fourth-year coach Brent Venables. The men’s basketball program snapped a three-year NCAA tournament drought when it reached the 2025 tournament in Porter Moser’s fourth season.
