STILLWATER — Chad Weiberg started his tenure as Oklahoma State’s athletic director with a joke on Thursday afternoon.

Weiberg was officially announced as OSU’s 13th athletic director in a news conference on Thursday inside Gallagher-Iba Arena. He was the first person new university president Kayse Shrum introduced after being tabbed as president earlier this summer.

“I hope you are president for a long time,” he said, “and I hope you have never have to introduce another athletic director.”

Weiberg spent the past four years as deputy AD under Mike Holder, who retired from the position after 16 years effective Thursday.

Weiberg thanked many people in his opening speech, and he saved Holder for last. Holder tried to stay out of the limelight, sitting in the crowd with media and family as opposed to on the stage.

“You have taken this entire athletics department to a place only you and Mr. Pickens thought possible,” Weiberg said. “There’s not an athletics program here that isn’t infinitely better because of your leadership as AD these last 16 years. Everywhere you look, you can see the spectacular efforts of your tireless efforts on behalf of the Cowboys and Cowgirls that you love so much and have for 50 years.

“That’s just the things you can see, but it’s also in the place you don’t see. Through your example, your actions, you have inspired us to think bigger, dream bigger and demand more of ourselves than we ever thought possible. That is the legacy you leave us and the responsibility we have to carry forward. Thank you, Coach, for all you have done for our student-athletes, our coaches and our fans. Thank you for all you have done for me. I am forever grateful.”

Weiberg graduated from OSU in 1984 with a business administration degree. He received a master’s in business administration from OSU in 2002.

He has deep roots into the OSU family. Jared Weiberg, one of Chad’s brothers, was one of the 10 people who died on their way back from a basketball game in Colorado in 2001. Jared played under Eddie Sutton for a year before becoming a team manager.

Chad choked up when speaking about his brother at the introductory news conference.

“And my brother, Jared,” Weiberg said. “How I wish he could be with us today. As a fellow OSU alum, I know he would be excited. We shared a love of this place, and just like I try to do every day, I hope I can make him proud.”

Weiberg worked at Oklahoma State after obtaining his undergraduate degree until 2004 when he left Stillwater to become the KSU Foundation as Director of Corporate Relations at Kansas State. He worked in Manhattan until 2015 when he took a deputy AD job at Texas Tech, a role he manned for two years before returning to Stillwater.

“This has always been my dream job,” Weiberg said. “… When the time came to look at moving it was scary for me, and I knew if I chose to leave, then the odds of me getting to come back would be slim. No matter how good I might do, the stars or timing would have to align and what are the odds that would happen? I had to wrap my mind around that to be able to leave and to be able to have any kind of success wherever I was.

“For some reason, I had a feeling that getting that experience would be good for me in terms of growth. Once you wrap your mind around that, it’s like can you really even dream it? Because you just felt the odds and chances were so slim. So to get that call and for it actually to happen, it’s still hard for me to wrap my mind around that I am standing up here today.”

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