ACU athletic director Jared Mosley announced Friday morning that he will resign to become the new CEO and president of the Texas Sports Hall of Fame in Waco.
“It obviously was a very tough decision to leave,” Mosley said. “I’ve been here 18 years going back to when I was a student, so anytime you spend that much time in one place where you get to cultivate meaningful relationships and connections with the people you work with is very difficult to walk away from.”
His resignation is immediate, but Mosley will stay on with the university until mid-October while also beginning his new position.
“In most situations, a move like this is due to you’re either asked to leave or you’re disgruntled, but this is a unique situation where is it neither,” Mosley said. “We feel that God is just calling us to a different place in life and we’re happy with where we’ve been and we feel very confident in where ACU will move in the future.”
President Phil Schubert has not named an interim director, but said the search for Mosley’s replacement would begin immediately.
“It’s been an honor and privilege to work with Jared,” Schubert said. “God has blessed him with enormous talents and abilities that have benefitted ACU under his leadership. While we will miss him, we wish him well in his new role at the Texas Sports Hall of Fame.”
Mosley was brought on as the seventh ACU director of athletics in June 2004. Since then, he has overseen the transition into Div. I athletics, helped lay out plans to bring on-campus stadiums for football and soccer, finalized a three-year deal with Adidas to be the official outfitter of Wildcat athletics and raised the overall student-athlete GPA from 2.74 when he began to 3.0 at the time of his resignation. He was recently recognized by Dr. Gary McCaleb, vice president, and the university for his 10 years as athletic director.
“The thing I’ll look back most on and reflect on is the relationships,” Mosley said. “What was extremely special to me and my family was getting to come back here, where I got my first start, and have the opportunity to learn and grow with amazing people around me every day.”
With Mosley at the helm, the university has earned 10 NCAA Div. II national championships, 20 Div. II regional championships and 46 Lone Star Conference championships. Mosley also helped bring women’s soccer to ACU, as the team had their inaugural season in 2007, in which they finished 8-11-1 in the Lone Star Conference.
In May 2008, he was honored with the All-American Football Foundation’s General Robert Neyland Award as the Athletics Director of the Year for the NCAA Southwest Region. Two years later, Mosley was the recipient of the Under Armour Div. II West Region Athletic Director of the Year.
“Dr. (Royce) Money, Dr. (Gary) McCaleb, Dr. (Phil) Schubert and many others have helped me tremendously during my time here,” Mosley said. “They’ve all understood the importance of athletics for a university and have helped me in giving ACU the best athletic programs that we can.”
As a student-athlete, Mosley was one of the most dominant basketball players the program has ever seen. He concluded his career in 1999 as the 11th-leading scorer and eighth-leading rebounder in school history. His senior year, he helped lead ACU to the Div. II South Central Region championship game.
Many of his accolades as an athlete included first team GTE academic all-America, first team NCAA all-South Central Region by the NABC, second team all-region by Daktronics-CoSIDA, LSC South Division MVP, and first team academic all-LSC.
