When Ray Anderson resigned from his position as ASU's athletic director in November 2023 after the school imposed a bowl ban on itself for football recruiting violations during COVID-19, the position was in limbo.
Graham Rossini, an ASU alumnus, originally joined Sun Devil Athletics in 2021 as a Senior Associate Athletics Director, following 13 years with the Arizona Diamondbacks, and was promoted to Executive Senior Associate Athletics Director/Chief Business Officer in 2023 before assuming the Athletics Director role in 2024.
In the Sun Devils' first season in the Big 12, they led the conference with titles in four different sports. Yet Rossini's success wasn't a product of his environment.
He inherited an ASU athletics landscape that had its major programs' head coaching positions occupied. Anderson hired baseball head coach Willie Bloomquist in 2021 and football head coach Kenny Dillingham the year before Rossini's ascension, in addition to men's basketball being helmed by Bobby Hurley, who was coming up on a decade in Tempe.
Even the newer additions of women's basketball head coach Natasha Adair and water polo head coach Petra Pardi were in place for Rossini. Unexpectedly, his first coaching search began with women's tennis, whose head coach Sheila McInerney was the longest-tenured ASU coach at the time of her retirement in 2024.
That quest took Rossini to Jamea Jackson, previously the head coach at Princeton. Jackson, who had a career-high rank of 45 on the Women's Tennis Association tour as a pro before retiring due to a hip injury, was named the 2024 Ivy League Coach of the Year and led the Tigers to back-to-back Ivy League titles.
McInerney aided Rossini in scouring for the program's future, stating that Jackson was "at the top" of a list of coaches she thought could move ASU women's tennis forward, valued Jackson's connections on tour and "loved Jackson's infectious personality", according to SDA.
Rossini reinforced those sentiments with a social media post welcoming Jackson the day her hiring was announced.
"We are so thrilled to welcome Coach Jackson to ASU!" Rossini posted on X. "Incredible experience playing tennis at a top int'l level and a championship collegiate coach. Off the charts energy and spirit that she will pour into her team and our community daily. Onward!"
Jackson has done exactly that, pushing ASU to No. 15 in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association rankings this season and leading the Sun Devils to their first Big 12 title during a 19-5 campaign.
While Jackson took over for a Sun Devil legend, Rossini's next hire was for women's basketball, a program that had gone four consecutive seasons with a losing record.
That changed after being inspired by GCU's run to the 2025 NCAA Tournament, Rossini hired head coach Molly Miller, and it's paid off immediately.
Going 24-11 and making an NCAA Tournament appearance in an impressive first year on campus, Miller was over the moon.
"When we first started this, we just wanted to build a team based on togetherness, toughness, belief," Miller said after making the NCAA Tournament. "Today was a snapshot of all that work. That was the reward of getting to go dancing. The belief that we had in each other. I don't know many people outside this locker room really thought we could get here today, but that locker room did from the get-go."
READ MORE: ASU announces former GCU coach Molly Miller as new head coach
Seeing success in his head coaching hire, Rossini was very proud of the work he did. However, the end goal in mind isn't just making the tournament.
With greater heights in mind, Rossini wants to get back to work on improving the athletic department.
"Our responsibility is to find the resources, the tools, the connections for our coaches to do their job at the highest possible level," Rossini said. "We'll continue to build on the momentum. We know there's incredible trajectory in this program."
After the women's basketball team was eliminated from the tournament, Rossini's attention quickly shifted to the opening in the office next door to Miller's.
When on the coaching search for the next men's basketball head coach, Rossini looked at the list of recent coaching hires to inspire him in finding the right leader for the program.
"There's a track record of winning and leadership that is consistent in all of (them)," Rossini said. "We want to pair track record with winning and leadership and understanding what that means with a committed department and a group of people that are rolling their sleeves to go find the resources that our coaches need to compete at a high level."
With names thrown around at the beginning of the coaching cycle, one man's name stood out: Randy Bennett.
At first, it seemed like it would be nearly impossible to pull Bennett from the job at Saint Mary's, where he spent the previous 25 seasons leading the Gaels to 12 NCAA Tournament appearances. Even ASU president Michael Crow thought the task might have been too tall.
"That was the number one name," Crow said in an interview with The State Press on March 24. "Could we get him? Could we convince him to come? Could we get him to leave a place that he'd been at for over 20-25 years?"
However, it was not an impossible dream. In fact, it was quite the opposite.
Following Saint Mary's loss to Texas A&M in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, Bennett's name was frequently mentioned in conversations surrounding the ASU job. After that, "it all worked out," as Crow said in, and ASU had its man.
While many names were discussed, Crow always saw Bennett as the number one choice.
"I look at his track record," Crow said in the March 24 interview. "He is one of these consummate work for the player, work for the team, work for the school coaches. All these years at one place ... unbelievable talent improvement, playing at very high levels of performance."
READ MORE: ASU to hire Randy Bennett as next men's basketball coach
Crow wasn't the only man who wanted to bring Bennett to ASU. Rossini was also impressed by his background.
"We were drawn to his sustained success over multiple decades, his strong recruiting relationships across the country, particularly on the West Coast, and his proven ability to identify and develop international talent," Rossini said, according to SDA. "Just as important, he brings a genuine enthusiasm for leading the Sun Devil Men’s Basketball program."
Bennett's opening press conference was delayed due to health-related issues, but he took the time to speak on SDA's YouTube channel, where he stated ASU was "the only place I would have left for." Bennett seems over the moon to return to his Arizona roots.
Despite Bennett's opening few weeks in Tempe being less than ideal, he has been active in the transfer portal after the huge loss of center Massamba Diop. Guards Joel Foxwell and JRob Croy, and forward Emmanuel Innocenti have been the highlights of Bennett's first offseason in Tempe, and the big fish of St. Mary's forward Paulius Murauskas, following his coach.
"We're going to fire a good shot," Bennett said. "This is a great basketball job. We're expecting to hit it running year one. We're starting with a whole new team, but so are other schools. I think you can expect a really competitive team, a team that's trying to play in the NCAA Tournament."
Rossini's philosophy surrounding these hires appears to follow a similar template, albeit with the differences that occur with any sport. Miller and Jackson are both younger, fiery coaches who have captured the fans' attention and transformed it into excitement for the program as a whole.
Their upbeat demeanor follows that of previously hired head coaches like Dillingham, who, in Rossini's first year, won the Big 12 Championship behind an authentic, player-driven culture that's continued to produce stars like Jordyn Tyson and Cam Skattebo.
Bennett slightly deviates from that pattern. His experience and reputation for building a program for 25 seasons doesn't match the same profile of hire as Rossini's others.
ASU men's basketball requires a foundation to work off of, however, and Bennett's years of experience at Saint Mary's have prepped him better than nearly any other coach in the nation to take control of a floundering Sun Devils roster.
Bennett's relationship with the state of Arizona, having grown up in Mesa, also made the transition easier, similar to Dillingham, who graduated from ASU and began his career as an assistant coach for the Sun Devils in 2014. Miller also had ties to the area after coaching GCU from 2020 to 2025.
Rossini continues to shift more and more programs toward not only relevance but also assuring they become and remain competitive.
"(We're trying) to simplify a very complicated time in college sports," Rossini said. "The athletes and talent development is a core focus of ours. Having great coaches to lead and be with these incredible student athletes every day is the most important part of it."
Edited by Niall Rosenberg, Jack McCarthy and Ellis Preston.
Reach the reporters at aswift10@asu.edu and pvallur2@asu.edu and follow @PrathamValluri and @alexswiftsports on X.
Like The State Press on Facebook and follow @statepress on X.
Pratham Valluri is a sports reporter at The State Press. He is a junior majoring in sports journalism with business and data analytics minors. He’s in his 5th semester with The State Press working previously as an opinion writer.
