He gets teased by some fans, but at least one other school in conference shows it could always be worse.
Ideally, fans shouldn’t think too much about what their athletic director is doing.
Athletic directors do a ton of behind the scenes work, from fundraising to making internal hires to glad-handing alumni to business development. But as long as they aren’t building an absolutely toxic culture, like Dave Brandon or Steve Patterson, most fans won’t hear anything about them.
As long as the athletic program has the resources to be competitive with its peers, the biggest thing fans see are coaching hires.