After spending nine years as the athletic director of Villanova, Athletic Director Mark Jackson is wrapping up his first academic year at the helm of Northwestern’s Department of Athletics and Recreation.
In the nine months since Jackson joined NU in late August, he’s overseen two national championship wins, the ongoing construction of Ryan Field and lakeside football as the University seeks to adapt to the rapidly changing college athletics landscape.
Jackson says he approaches each day with six objectives in mind: 1) advancing NU’s goals, 2) making sure the University graduates “complete” student-athletes, 3) winning championships, 4) creating a culture of compliance and community, 5) remaining fiscally sound and generating revenue and 6) making sure the athletic department can successfully convey its messaging.
“We want to be aligned with the mission of Northwestern,” Jackson said. “We don’t want to be an athletic department that sits on an island and our doors are closed. I don’t want that at all. I really want to open our doors up and be a great partner on campus.”
The Daily sat down with Jackson on Monday for a wide-ranging conversation following the conclusion of NU’s 2024-2025 athletic season.
This interview has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.
The Daily Northwestern: Your first academic year on the job is coming to a close. What have been some of the things you’ve learned as the year has gone on?
Jackson: The obvious things that certainly met my expectations were academic prestige. In terms of the commitment to the overall academic mission, that is real. I think the connection to the community globally has been felt, as this is very much a global alumni network that you can feel from all over the world. People were passionate about what we do and the way we perform, and the way we conduct ourselves.
I think the thing I may have underestimated was the people within our department. You know, we’re a relatively big department, with 500-plus student athletes and close to 300 full-time employees. It’s much bigger than where I came from, and I came here by myself. I didn’t bring anybody with me, so I really relied on everybody across the department to help me understand what the culture and expectations of Northwestern are. And I’ve been really fortunate just to be around people who have been immersed in that culture. I think that has exceeded my expectations — just the quality of people in our community.
And as I’ve listened and learned a lot, now we’re starting to turn the corner and starting to implement some things. I couldn’t be any more excited about the future.
The Daily: Do you have a progress update on Ryan Field? Is the timeline still set for the stadium to open during the 2026 football season?
Jackson: We’re working hard every day to stay on track, both with the budget and the timeline. No major curveballs as of yet to set us back. It will be a tight window leading into the 2026 season for sure, but we’re really excited. Anybody who’s driven by Central Street with the structural steel up, you can really start to see it take shape. The winter was bearable — it could have been worse — so that allowed us to stay on track. We started our initial sales process and launch, and that’s all been very optimistic.
The stadium design is unique. It’s going to be intimate. It’s going to be on top of you. We need to pack it in purple. We’ve got to find ways to do that and attack that.
The Daily: What are some of the advantages that come with having a state-of-the-art stadium like the new Ryan Field?
Jackson: There won’t be a bad seat in the house. Every seat will have some sort of premium experience attached to it. It’s critically important we engage with the student body to create a unique student-led platform. We want it to be loud, and we built a stadium section there in the south end zone that’s going to be unique in college athletics.
We’re really trying to think through every element of the design and the fan experience to give us the best chance to win, but also to create that experience that you need to be there. … You’ve seen it happen in basketball at Welsh-Ryan Arena, and we need to build off of that and continue that momentum.
The Daily: While Ryan Field is being built, the football team played at Martin Stadium with temporary seating added. Northwestern lacrosse set an attendance record at that stadium this spring. What has been your experience like seeing people come out to watch the ’Cats on the shores of Lake Michigan?
Jackson: It’s never lost on me what a unique experience it is. And we’ve got to continue to pack it in purple. We have a great home schedule this year, with seven home games, and we want to create the kind of atmosphere that helps us win football games. And then you look forward to spring 2026, to be the first program off the East Coast to host the Final Four for women’s lacrosse. We want to showcase Northwestern in a major way for something that’s historic like that.
The Daily: Professional women’s soccer team Chicago Stars FC is playing a match at Martin Stadium in September and has requested a zoning analysis to play their home matches there in 2026. What has communication been like between Northwestern Athletics and the Stars?
Jackson: We’re Chicago’s Big Ten team, so we’re always listening and finding ways, whether it’s the Cubs or the Stars, the Bears, you name it, we’re in pretty consistent communication in that network of Chicago and Evanston.
We know the demographic of the North Shore and the attraction to women’s soccer. It’s a league that’s on the rise, as all women’s sports are. I want to create the best platform I can for women’s sports. My daughter just graduated with a Division I softball experience, and I know what that means, and creating the right environment and atmosphere for that. So I’m all about that partnership and the collaboration and helping each other out.
The Daily: Has there been any decision made about Martin Stadium after Ryan Field’s construction is completed? Will the temporary seating come down? Stay up?
Jackson: Nothing finalized yet. There’s certainly a lot of concepts out there. We know the way that it attracted a national media audience. We know there’s something special to showcase sports in that environment. We don’t want to take steps back from that. I think we’re just starting those conversations now. We’re going to keep it up through 2026, and it’ll allow us the opportunity to look at all those opportunities.
The Daily: We’re still waiting for the House vs. NCAA settlement to be finalized. How are you positioning the department to be successful once that settlement shakes up the collegiate athletic landscape?
Jackson: We’re not going to be built like a traditional athletic department. We’re really going to build it like a C-suite model, and we’ve done some of that already. So we hired a Chief Revenue Officer (Jesse Marks), we hired a Chief Communications and Branding Officer (Savanna Wood), we’ll have a chief operating officer and a chief administrative officer. Those positions are all uniquely designed to help navigate what’s coming at us. In a lot of ways, I’m more like a CEO than I am an athletic director. We can’t lose sight of the academic mission and all that goes into the student-athlete experience. But we’ve done countless models of the what-ifs around the House case.
I can’t stress enough how advantageous it is for us to be a member of the Big Ten, especially as coming away from the Big Ten meetings last week. Commissioner (Tony) Petitti has us swimming in the same direction. We want to see the Big Ten thrive in the future.
The Daily: Northwestern traditionally has been kind of strict with the transfer portal, and those rules have kind of been relaxed over the past couple of years. What has been the strategy you’ve utilized when approaching the transfer portal?
Jackson: We’re not asking to be anything different than what we’ve been, with a priority on attracting student athletes that want to come here and earn a degree at a really competitive place. That hasn’t changed. But the conversations I’ve had with the Provost and with our admissions department just speak to the realities about us being able to move quickly when we identify somebody, the demands of what our coaches are under, what we’re up against. And there are just dynamics that a lot of places don’t deal with. The fact that we’re on the quarter system changes the schedule and dynamics of that.
Everybody has an open mind. And the beauty about Northwestern is, we’ve got a lot of really smart people who are willing to figure things out. My job was to come in and communicate what our needs were based on what I was learning from our head coaches, and I think those needs were adhered to and listened to and we’re working really hard together to make it work.
The Daily: What are your goals for this summer and then heading into the academic year?
Jackson: This summer, primarily, I want to get my family settled in Evanston. We’ve kind of been all over the map.
We’re all hands on deck with House, and the adjustments once this decision comes through, how we implement it is a huge priority for us. Progress on Ryan Field, that’s nonstop. That’s every day, all day. We’re paying attention to that, not only on the construction side, but also on the sales and the corporate partnership side. That’s another priority, finishing my senior team. We’re building this new structure, and I’m excited to make some strides with that as well.
But everything has exceeded my expectations, and we want to just keep taking steps forward.
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