Michael Kelly has spent the past eight months evaluating the Navy athletic department with regard to how it operates and functions. Naturally, Kelly paid special attention to his role as athletic director in terms of responsibilities and how best to lead the department.

Kelly, who took over as president of the Naval Academy Athletic Association on June 4, quickly discovered that he was away from Annapolis quite a bit — whether attending NCAA or American Conference meetings, supporting various varsity sports for road contests or simply fundraising.

Being out of town so often made managing the day-to-day business of a Division I athletic department quite difficult. Kelly concluded that he needed a top lieutenant to assist him on that front.

Last week, Navy announced that Kris Pierce had been hired for the newly-created position of senior deputy athletic director and chief of staff. In announcing the new post, Kelly noted that Navy is tied with Ohio State and Stanford for fielding the most varsity sports (36) among Football Bowl Subdivision schools.

“Leading the largest athletic department in the country during a period of significant change in college athletics requires elite sports administration oversight and adaptive, forward-looking strategic planning,” Kelly said in a statement. “Kris is highly regarded at the national level and the ideal leader to help modernize our efforts within the NAAA.”

Kelly has maintained the model created by predecessor Chet Gladchuk of having members of the athletic department serve as varsity sports administrators. Those folks will now report to Pierce, who will address various issues and make certain decisions.

“We have administrators for every sport, but for them or the coaches to wait to get some information from me bottlenecks things up,” Kelly said. “I knew bringing aboard a capable and highly experienced sports administrator like Kris would be something that will make Navy athletics better.”

Pierce is someone Kelly knows extremely well, working together for 12 years. They were peers with the Atlantic Coast Conference from 2007 to 2013 as Kelly was the football administrator and Pierce was the Olympic sports administrator.

Kelly then hired Pierce as deputy athletic director, chief operating officer and senior woman administrator at South Florida in 2021. Her role at Navy will be similar to the one she held at USF for five years.

“Having Kris concentrate on the day-to-day allowed me to focus more of my time on gaining the resources we needed for capital projects,” Kelly said of their time together at South Florida. “It’s that much more necessary here at Navy where we have double the number of sports. Just a person to be a close right hand to keep things moving along when I might be away. Someone the staff can rely on to keep the train moving at all times.”

This marks the first major athletic department personnel decision Kelly has made since succeeding Chet Gladchuk as president of NAAA.

“I have not made a single administrative change yet. I have been able to observe where people’s strengths are and where we need to fill in collaboration among different silos,” Kelly said. “That is what Kris will help with. She has a great organizational mind and brings a thoughtful, steady, collaborative approach that will be a tremendous asset to our department and, most importantly, the midshipmen we serve.”

Pierce said it is an honor to join the Naval Academy athletic department, which has a national reputation for excellence. What was most attractive about the job is being part of the Naval Academy mission of developing leaders and officers.

Of course, Pierce also cited her long-term relationship with Kelly and the fact she appreciates his leadership style and vision.

“From afar, the academy has enjoyed a level of success that is very interesting to anyone that follows college athletics. Knowing Michael as well as I do, I was so happy to see him become the athletic director here,” Pierce said. “Working in this environment and helping the midshipmen find success was very motivating, while working with somebody that I admire and respect so much — it checked all the boxes.”

Pierce plans to spend the next few months learning the lay of the land, starting with meeting with all the members of the athletic department under her direction. She also wants to get to know all 36 varsity coaches and to hear about their respective programs.

“We’re not rushing into anything because I want to spend a ton of time listening. I want to make sure I understand the culture and why we’re doing things the way we are doing them,” Pierce said. “My background is heavily involved with overseeing sports and building relationships with coaches; I really enjoy supporting sports and mapping the competitive strategy with coaches.”

Kelly and Pierce will work together to determine whether any changes need to be made to how the Navy athletic department is structured and operated. She said they are aligned with regard to recognizing the standards and expectations in place.

“So the gist of this job is ensuring that the day-to-day operations of Naval Academy athletics continue at the elite level they are already on and finding new ways to do things in the future,” Pierce said. “I’m going to be listening and understanding then we will forge a plan and implement it with the ultimate goal of winning in all that we do.”

Pierce is a newcomer to a Navy athletic department filled with many long-term administrators. She is now second in command overtop numerous folks holding titles such as deputy director of athletics and senior associate athletic director.

Have a news tip? Contact Bill Wagner at bwagner@capgaznews.com, 443-534-0102 and x.com/@BWagner_CapGaz.