Boston College director of athletics to step down

CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. — The director of athletics at Boston College is stepping down and taking a position elsewhere, according to a news release Monday morning.

Brad Bates has been the director of athletics at BC since 2011, during which the department has come under fire for a lack of success in NCAA sports.

Bates said in a letter to the school's supporters last year that he had "total confidence" in his football and basketball coaches even though their teams failed to win an Atlantic Coast Conference game in either sport during that academic year.

Not since Texas Christian, then of the Southwest Conference, went a combined 0-24 in 1976-77 has a school from a major Division I conference gone winless in its league football and basketball seasons. BC is the first ACC school ever to sink that low.

In 2016, Bates finalized a plan for BC Athletics that invested $200 million in new facilities for both intercollegiate and intramural athletics.

“Brad is a man of great integrity and has been a tremendous ambassador for Boston College and its Athletics program,” said University President William Leahy, S.J. “CSA is fortunate to have him join its team.”

Bates announced Monday morning he would step down at the end of the academic year and join the Collegiate Sports Associates of Chapel Hill, N.C.

The university will use an national executive search firm to look for a replacement.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

Cox Media Group