It’s been nearly 25 years since J Batt was a national championship-winning soccer player at North Carolina, but he can still remember the five words he used to rattle back to Kevin Guskiewicz when the latter worked in sports medicine with the Tar Heels.
Elbow, apple, carpet, saddle, bubble. A series of words to recall in order to test for concussions.
All these years later, Batt recited them back to Guskiewicz, now president of Michigan State University, on a phone call more than a week ago.
Gibberish to some, but those were five of the most important words Guskiewicz heard during the hiring search that landed Batt as MSU’s new athletic director. Batt signed a six-year contract north of $1.5 million annually June 1, making him the Spartans’ 21st athletic director in school history.
“I had a pretty good suspicion that he was going to have great success,”
Guskiewicz told The Detroit News. “I’m just thrilled that we’re going to be reunited, and I think he’ll, again, take Spartan athletics to the next level.”
Though it’s been decades since Batt and Guskiewicz worked alongside one another at North Carolina, Batt’s career in athletic administration spans 14 years as a highly touted fundraiser and innovator in his field. That includes stops as an associate or deputy AD at Maryland (2011 to 2013), East Carolina (2013 to 2017) and Alabama (2017 to 2022) before stepping into his first job running the entire athletic department at Georgia Tech since 2022.
Guskiewicz fired Alan Haller on May 1 after the former Spartan athlete and administrator spent 3.5 years at the helm in East Lansing. In its next leader, Michigan State wanted someone who could fundraise and generate revenue.
A CEO.
“I said from the outset that I wanted to hire an athletics director that could run a major corporation, and J Batt I am convinced will, in fact, do that.
He’s done it at Georgia Tech for the past 3½ years. He’s been at several other Power Five schools, and he understands the business side, which is really important.”
Batt comes from a list of eight finalists for the job, a group that consistently left Guskiewicz impressed.
Michigan State hired TurnkeyZRG to lead the search, which was headed up by Chad Chatlos, who led the searches that landed Jonathan Smith with MSU football and Dusty May with Michigan men’s basketball.
Chatlos’ dad, George Chatlos, played for the Spartan football teams that won back-to-back NCAA titles in 1965 and ‘66.
Hiring Batt, 43, is one of two major hires Guskiewicz and the MSU Board of Trustees have made this spring, a little over a year since he became Michigan State’s president in March 2024. Michigan State hired provost and executive VP Laura Lee McIntyre in May, who is the top official in academics.
Now, Guskiewicz has his leader in athletics, too, and one he will trust to lead the department. That could entail the construction of a team of executives around Batt, who believes strongly in surrounding himself with strong leaders.
“I’m going to hand the keys over to J Batt to run the athletics department, and he’s going to have full responsibility to run it,”
Guskiewicz said.
Batt takes over at a critical juncture for Michigan State. The resolution of the House v. NCAA settlement could put into effect roster limits and the distribution of $20.5 million in revenue sharing as early as next season.
Michigan State wants a strong leader at the helm of an institution that wants to compete in Power Four athletics.
Batt comes with a strong resume in a number of key areas for Michigan State.
First and foremost, he’s a fundraiser, gathering north of $78 million in donations to Georgia Tech athletics during his first fiscal year on the job. That success came in a market already dominated by three pro sports teams.
According to records obtained recently by The Detroit News, Michigan State athletics raised $44 million in donations in fiscal year 2025, with a month to spare. Batt also boasts experience in generating revenue, including in the form of corporate partnerships.
“(Batt) knows how to generate revenue,” Guskiewicz said. “We need somebody who’s creative, innovative to develop new revenue streams. Every school in the country right now is trying to do this, and I think we will have a leader in J Batt that will understand how to get that done.”
Before the ink had dried on Batt’s new contract, he already was reaching out to Guskiewicz for contact info for a group of donors whom he had met with earlier in the hiring process.
He wanted to send them thank yous.
“That right there says who J Batt is,” Guskiewicz said. “That’s how you build relationships. You cultivate donors and build relationships, and so that’s who he is. And he’s already begun looking at how we can think about ticketing and for our sporting venues. He’s given this a lot of thought.
I couldn’t be happier with where we are.”
As part of Batt’s fundraising efforts at Georgia Tech, he raised money for planned renovations to Bobby Dodd Stadium. He also helped raise money to renovate Alabama’s Bryant-Denny Stadium. Both amount to prescient experience considering the age and state of Spartan Stadium, a 102-year-old venue that the Board of Trustees approved $30 million in renovations for in December.
At Alabama, Batt developed a close relationship with football coach Nick Saban, who led Michigan State from 1995 to 1999. Saban shared his praises with Michigan State as part of the hiring process.
“We heard loud and clear from Coach Saban that J Batt is a superstar and somebody who will relate to coaches really well,”
Guskiewicz said. “But he’ll also develop a strategy for fundraising.”
And a strategy for major hires. Batt made two of those at Georgia Tech — football coach Brent Key and men’s basketball coach Damon Stoudamire.
Considering how quickly football coaches move in and out of programs these days, and considering the fact Tom Izzo, now 70, will one day have to retire, Batt comes well equipped with the experience needed to hire two of the most important positions in the athletic department.
Batt is the first external hire for MSU’s AD in three decades, bringing an outside perspective to an athletic department that has cultivated its own leaders.
“He’ll appreciate that we have rich traditions here at Michigan State, that we’re proud of, that we will certainly embrace,”
Guskiewicz said. “But also help us think about how to become a more contemporary and a more bold-thinking institution as it pertains to intercollegiate athletics.
And he’s going to bring that from some other really good places.”