Dave Heeke and Bobby Robbins became acquainted in the summer of 2017, newbies to Tucson and the UA. The two men, achievers at a high level, hit it off right away.
Heeke, a college baseball player from Michigan, had helped Oregon’s ascent as one of college football’s biggest brands. Robbins, a prep football player from Mississippi, had become a nationally-recognized heart surgeon at Stanford.
Greg Hansen is the longtime sports columnist for the Arizona Daily Star and Tucson.com.
Among the first things they did together in their new jobs at the UA, Heeke as athletic director and Robbins as president, was to examine the aging bones of Arizona Stadium, built in 1929.
Both agreed the west side of the stadium was beyond repair. Robbins suggested they tear down the west side of the stadium and start over. It was the first look at his aggressive, get-it-done mentality. But the cost, possibly $200 million or more, was unsettling..
It was a precursor of their seven challenging years together.
They chose to delay the inevitable rebuild of the old stadium. Maybe it was one of those “let the next AD and another president worry about it’’ things. But it was probably more that they were overwhelmed by an immediate need to spend tens of millions of dollars on other behind-the-times facilities.
University of Arizona President Robert C. Robbins, right, and athletic director Dave Heeke speak during a press conference on Aug. 7 at Arizona Stadium about the UA’s move from the Pac-12 to the Big 12.
They discovered what former Arizona athletic director Jim Livengood understood in 2009 when he announced a plan to spend $378 million to upgrade 12 sports facilities over the next 20 years.
Across the last seven years, Heeke, with Robbins' support, spent about $100 million to rebuild the softball stadium, the swimming plant, the Zona Zoo section of Arizona Stadium, to re-do every locker room inside McKale Center, to build the Davis Indoor football center and add another $10 million to the flashy Lowell-Stevens Football Facility.
As each facility was completed, the athletic department’s debt service grew. It is business as usual in the 21st century of college sports.
The two men, Heeke and Robbins, appeared to be arm in arm, highly visible, together at most UA football and basketball games, travel companions on missions to hire Tommy Lloyd and Jedd Fisch and elsewhere..
At times I wondered if Heeke resented Robbins’ ever-present companionship, but he told me such was not the case, even when they disagreed on the hire of Fisch (Heeke wanted San Jose State’s Brent Brennan.) They were as much buddies as they were partners. If you saw one playing in the Pro-Am of the PGA Tour Champions event, you saw the other, deciding which club to use 125 yards from the green.
Vice President and Director of Athletics Dave Heeke, left, and University of Arizona president Robert C. Robbins speak during an August 2023 press conference about the UA's move to the Big 12 Conference at Arizona Stadium.
But even that relationship couldn’t withstand the furor over Arizona’s financial distress.
After Heeke returned home from campus Sunday afternoon, a day spent having lunch with Brennan and his football team and watching the NFL playoffs — taking a breath from a wild week in which Fisch fled to Washington and Brennan arrived from San Jose State — Robbins phoned.
Out of the blue, he fired Heeke, a gut punch that not only floored him, but left him wondering why.
Robbins did not fire Heeke for cause. Therefore, the UA must pay its former AD about $75,000 per month through June 2025, when his contract expires. It has been written and said that Heeke was fired because of “financial and operational mismanagement,’’ but that’s not accurate either.
Heeke is the casualty of a bigger battle, one between Robbins and his many (and very vocal) campus detractors, those crying for blood related to the UA’s $240 million budget shortfall. The easiest thing to do was to find a fall guy.
Meet Dave Heeke, a perfect target.
Firing the man responsible for the athletic department’s deficit, said to be between $55 million and $85 million, is surely a move to buy Robbins time, even though the central administration approved all of the athletic department building projects and green-lighted the costly decision (maybe $45 million) to keep the athletic department in full operation during the COVID season.
They supported one another during a three-year NCAA investigation and dismissal of Sean Miller, and didn’t split when the UA’s mega-donor, Jeff Stevens, withdrew his financial support after Robbins pushed the hiring of Fisch.
“As long as Bobby is there,’’ Stevens told me in April 2021, “I’m out.’’
Now Heeke is out.
The athletic department’s financial distress is not an out-of-nowhere shock. The simple fact is that it costs more than Arizona and many Pac-12 rivals generate to run an athletic department. UCLA last week announced an athletic department deficit of $36 million for the fiscal year 2023. It is the fifth straight year the Bruins have run a deficit in excess of $10 million.
If you research the numbers, you’ll find that Cal, Oregon State, Washington State, ASU and Colorado are in the same financial neighborhood. The next Arizona AD , Utah’s Mark Harlan or Nevada’s Stephanie Rempe or whoever and with whatever credentials, will also operate at a budget deficit here.
Robbins has shown that he is no longer willing to stand by Heeke and act against a coalition of campus leaders lest it compromise his own political support. By firing Heeke, he has taken the road of least resistance. It might buy him time, or even save his job.
What a guy, huh?
What’s next? As crazy as it seems, Robbins, whose contract expires June 30, 2025, is likely to be a committee of one to hire Heeke’s replacement. Given the administrative chaos at the UA, convincing an elite athletic director to work for Robbins, arm in arm, will be a difficult sell.
A few years ago, Cedric Dempsey, the most admired AD in 100 years of Arizona sports and former executive director of the NCAA, told me “it’s always a critical time in college athletics. It’s not an easy job. It’s a political job.’’
Final score: Politics 1, Heeke 0.
