The athletic director of the state of Michigan, Alan Haller, is out after almost five years of leading the department.
Haller, a former Spartans soccer player who has worked for MSU Athletics since 2010 after more than a decade with the University Police Department, will resign on May 11. He had been under contract until August 2026 after assuming Bill Beekman's sports director in September 2021.
The president of the University, Kevin Guskiewicz, who began at school in 2024 after serving as North Carolina Chancellor, thanked Haller, who said he is “deeply committed to this university and has led with honesty and integrity.”
Guskiewicz added that “a new director of athletics will seek who can better navigate the changing panorama of collegiate athletics while working in close collaboration with internal and external stakeholders to advance Michigan State as a leader among Power Four institutions.”
The attached director of Athletics, Jennifer Smith, and the former male basketball coach, Tom Izzo, will serve as co-intermedia athletics directors during the search for Haller's replacement.
Haller, who grew up near MSU in Lansing, Michigan, played corner for the Spartans from 1988 to 1991, before spending three seasons in the NFL. He became a lieutenant in the police department of the State of Michigan before joining athletics, reaching the deputy director of Athletics under Beekman in 2019.
His most significant training hiring came in 2023, since he hired Jonathan Smith to direct the football program. Haller dismissed the soccer coach Mel Tucker for the cause in September 2023, after the university investigated Tucker for a complaint of inappropriate sexual behavior presented by Brenda Tracy, an awareness speaker on sexual aggression. Last August, Tucker filed an unfair termination against Michigan's state to appoint Haller and interim president Teresa Woodruff.
Haller, 54, also hired the women's basketball coach Robyn Fralick and the Hockey coach Adam Nightingale.
