Michigan St. Advertisement Haller out; Izzo named co-interim

Adam RittenbergMay 1, 2025, 11:32 AM ET

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College football reporter; joined ESPN in 2008. Graduate of Northwestern University.Michigan State athletic director

Alan Haller is out after nearly five years of leading the department.Haller, a previous Spartans football player who has worked for MSU sports since 2010 after more than a decade with the university’s cops department, will step down May 11. He had actually been under agreement through August 2026 after taking over as athletic director for Costs Beekman in September 2021. University president Kevin Guskiewicz, who started at the school in 2024 after functioning as North Carolina’s

chancellor, thanked Haller, who he said is “deeply committed to this university and has actually led with honesty and stability.”Guskiewicz added that he will “seek a new athletic director who can best browse the changing landscape of

collegiate sports while working carefully with both internal and external stakeholders to move Michigan State forward as a leader amongst the Power 4 institutions.”Deputy athletic director Jennifer Smith and long time guys’s basketball coach Tom Izzo will function as co-interim athletic directors throughout the search for Haller’s replacement.Haller, who matured near MSU in Lansing, Michigan, played cornerback for the Spartans from 1988 to 1991, before investing three seasons in the NFL. He became a lieutenant in the Michigan State police department before joining athletics, rising to deputy athletic director under Beekman in 2019. His most substantial training hire can be found in 2023, as he worked with Jonathan Smith to lead the football program. Haller fired football coach Mel Tucker for cause in September 2023, after the university investigated Tucker for a sexual misbehavior complaint brought by Brenda Tracy, a sexual attack awareness speaker. Last August, Tucker filed a wrongful termination claim versus Michigan State that names Haller and interim president Teresa Woodruff.Haller, 54, also employed females’s basketball coach Robyn Fralick and hockey coach Adam Nightingale.