MILWAUKEE -- Ball State athletic director Bill Scholl is joining Marquette University as its new athletic director, Marquette president Michael Lovell announced Tuesday.
Scholl, 57, will start at Marquette in mid-October. The university has been without a permanent athletic director since Larry Williams left in December after holding the job for less than two years. Men's basketball coach Buzz Williams left for Virginia Tech four months later.
Scholl rattled off the names of Al McGuire, Jim Chones, Dean Meminger, Bo Ellis, Butch Lee and Rick Majerus, who coached at Ball State from 1987-89, during his introduction at a news conference at Marquette on Tuesday, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (http://bit.ly/1wfrdgQ) reported.
"I know I'm dating myself, but as a teenager, I had the opportunity in person to see them coach and play," Scholl said. "What a tremendous history this program has."
Scholl said he had both an "incredible excitement and an enormous sense of responsibility ... as I am given this opportunity to lead one of the great programs in intercollegiate athletics."
Larry Williams was replaced on an interim basis by Bill Cords, who was the athletic director at Marquette for 20 years before retiring in 2006.
Scholl worked at Notre Dame for 23 years, where he was deputy athletic director before joining Ball State in Muncie, Indiana, in 2012.
"When you look at Bill's record in intercollegiate athletics, it really speaks for itself," Lovell said during Scholl's news conference.
Scholl will report directly to Lovell.
Golden Eagles basketball coach Steve Wojciechowski said he welcomed Scholl's hiring and the beginning of renewed continuity of leadership at Marquette.
"I think it's a huge step for the athletic department," Wojciechowski said. "The leadership Bill will provide for our program and the rest of the sports programs involved is huge. We were all anxious to see who that new leader was going to be. I think we are all excited to move forward."
Ball State President Paul Ferguson said in a statement that he regretted losing Scholl so early in his time there.
"But I understand his motivation to seek the Marquette experience," Ferguson said.
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Information from: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, http://www.jsonline.com