UCLA Athletics announced its search committee to select its next head football coach Thursday morning.
The committee, headed by athletic director Martin Jarmond, consists of Wasserman CEO Casey Wasserman; former Golden State Warriors general manager/president and UC Regent Bob Myers; former UCLA football player and 10-year NFL linebacker Eric Kendricks; Washington Commanders general manager Adam Peters; and executive senior associate athletic director Erin Adkins.
“I want to thank the members of the search committee who have, out of their love for UCLA, agreed to contribute their time and expertise to this process,” Jarmond said in a release Thursday. “We will identify, recruit and invest in a leader who has the vision, the confidence, the attitude, and the proven ability to return UCLA Football to national prominence, and we will provide the resources to compete and win at the highest level. That’s our commitment to our alumni, fans and supporters.”
All committee members, besides Jarmond and Adkins, are UCLA alumni. Adkins has worked in Westwood since 2018 and is the sports administrator for football and women’s soccer.
Myers played for the UCLA men’s basketball team from 1993-97 and served as a radio commentator for the Bruins for two seasons. Kendricks suited up for the Bruins from 2010-14 on the gridiron, winning the Butkus Award for the top college linebacker as a senior. Peters played football at UCLA from 1999-2001, and then joined the program as a football operations assistant in 2002 – a launching point for his football executive career.
Wasserman, who graduated from UCLA in 1996, was on the search committee when UCLA hired Chip Kelly in 2017.
Then, however, former Bruins quarterback and NFL great Troy Aikman was also on the search committee. Aikman is likely the most notable omission on the search committee to replace DeShaun Foster after he was fired just three weeks into the season following UCLA’s loss to New Mexico. Tim Skipper, who was hired in July as a special assistant to Foster, has been promoted to interim head coach.
Former senior associate athletic director Josh Rebholz, who served on the Kelly search committee, resigned from UCLA in 2024 after 13 years in the administration. The newly formed search committee will have at least a few months to review candidates – likely from the professional and college football coaching ranks – before deciding on who will be next to lead the Bruins.
Firing Foster early in the 2025 season allows Jarmond and the committee to ease their way into a coaching selection, considering the rushed search that led to Foster’s hiring in February 2024. Such a decision seems primed to arrive at least after the end of the college football regular season in December.