OXFORD -- There weren't a whole lot of questions for Joel Maturi at his first press conference as Miami University athletic director. But there's one thing he has been asked plenty since he decided to leave the University of Denver: Why Miami?
"It's a fair question," Maturi said. "I don't know that I totally have an answer. You talk about fits. You talk about feel. We consider ourselves Midwesterners.
"I think I missed football more than I realized. I played it, I coached it, it's important to me. I missed that vibrancy of Saturday afternoons. I'll look forward to that here."
A Notre Dame football recruit whose career was ended by a basketball injury, Maturi used that circumstance as an excuse to get involved in coaching while still in school. He went from coaching into administration and was associate athletic director at Wisconsin until December 1996, when he took the job at Denver and was in charge of lifting Denver to Division I status.
The primary concern in that area was finding a conference affiliation. Earlier this month, Maturi and Denver accepted an invitation to join the Sun Belt Conference.
He faces no such challenges at Miami, where his greatest initial concerns are hiring a new women's basketball coach and a sports information director, and his most pressing long-term problem is bringing the athletic department into compliance with federal Title IX regulations.
"This place isn't broken. I'm not here to fix it," said Maturi, who will earn an annual salary of $118,000. "When I went to Denver, it wasn't broken. It didn't even exist."
Maturi, 53, said he looks forward to speaking with coaches and administrators at Miami. He said this was "his last job," which was part of his appeal to university president James C. Garland. Miami has benefitted from its position as an ideal "stepping-stone" program, sending its past two athletic directors and men's basketball coaches to jobs in higher-profile conferences. But Garland believes it will help the athletic program to have a capable administrator who plans on remaining in Oxford.
"To be very honest, I've taken every job with that in mind," Maturi said. "I never, necessarily, thought I was going to leave the University of Denver, but at the same time, there was an understanding there might be something if I were talented enough or if somebody thought I was talented enough."
