Washington State's Jon Haarlow: Cougars must commit to change

The Washington State Cougars have a choice:

Commit to change, or commit to irrelevance.

So said new Cougs athletic director Jon Haarlow, who stopped by The Times newsroom Wednesday during a visit to Seattle. In a roughly 30-minute interview, WSU's 16th AD discussed his department's financial health and fundraising goals, attendance and enrollment issues, competitive ambitions in a rebuilt Pac-12, College Football Playoff access, new football coach Kirby Moore and embattled men's basketball coach David Riley, partnership with president Elizabeth Cantwell and more.

The throughline was ongoing earthquakes of unabated change - roster changes, rule changes, revenue changes, conference changes, coaching changes, leadership changes. As the ground shakes, traditions topple and revenue rules, only the Palouse's wavy wheat fields remain unmoved.

Haarlow, of course, is proof personified. He's the Cougs' third athletic director in the past two years, after Pat Chun was hired by the rival Huskies in 2024 and Anne McCoy (Chun's successor) was fired in November. The Cougs have had three football coaches, two men's basketball coaches and two presidents in the same span.

"I've seen all the different phases of WSU thus far," said Haarlow, who joined the department as senior associate athletic director and chief financial officer in 2021. "But my family loves it there. I love WSU, love the community. They embraced us from Day 1. I saw what game days were like there in Pullman three, four years ago. I took that personal. We can get back to that.

"I saw how much my family enjoyed it, how much it meant to our alumni, the student-athletes certainly. I thought, ‘I can lead this.' "

Cantwell - who succeeded previous president Kirk Schulz in April 2025 - obviously agreed, entrusting a first-time AD with navigating a new era. Before earning the permanent position in April, Haarlow had a productive five months as interim AD - hiring Moore and women's soccer coach Chris Citowicki, and spearheading a $3.4 million renovation of the football locker room. The university's former assistant vice president for business and financial services (a post he held from 2022 to 2024) has a history of balancing books.

That background should be beneficial.

Because, while WSU continues to make annual $11 million debt-service payments for capital projects, its media-rights revenue decreased from roughly $27 million in the old Pac-12 to $7 million in the reconstructed conference. The Cougs must also compete via NIL and revenue sharing to remain relevant in this evolving era.

Haarlow has been handed a financial puzzle. It's his job to surf the earthquakes, in search of solid ground.

"We've been extraordinarily reliant on the media rights deal in previous iterations, for 50% of our revenue. Can't do that now," Haarlow acknowledged Wednesday. "We've got to be more dynamic. So we've been building out our revenue office, allocating resources to try to add bodies for that.

"It can't just be fundraising. It can't just be ticket sales. It can't just be sponsorships. We've got licensing and retail that we've seen … even just this year, we're through three quarters, and we're ahead of last year with a full quarter to go. So we can't be reliant on just one stream."

Perhaps the most significant stream?

The Cougs' roughly 250,000 living alums.

Which is why Haarlow was here, attempting to engage the west side of the state. After leaving The Times newsroom, he planned to meet with two other existing WSU donors. The necessity, he said, is for WSU to land in "the top two or three" in the new Pac-12 in football revenue share, a goal he claims to have achieved this year.

But with 4,000 current donors to the Cougar Athletic Fund, there's room for continued growth.

There's also opportunity.

"You don't have an opportunity to be part of a new Pac-12 very often, or launch a new conference - ever. This is a historical moment," Haarlow said. "So our fanbase has an opportunity to be a part of this thing, come alongside us. We can pursue championships.

"We had some strong seasons in the legacy Pac-12. I don't know that we had an opportunity to say with confidence that we should be fighting for a top spot year in and year out. We absolutely have that opportunity. But it's going to take everyone involved for us to get to that full potential."

It'll take Moore, the Prosser product and first-year Cougs football coach, who Haarlow credited for building a dynamic staff and comprehensive buy-in. It'll take Riley, who went just 12-20 in his second season at WSU. (Haarlow emphasized that "I believe in coach Riley and his abilities. I think the talent he's brought in this portal season has been exciting.") It'll take a continued commitment from Cantwell, whose alignment Haarlow called "crucial. It would be very difficult if she wasn't as big of an advocate [of athletics] or didn't understand the importance. If we were over here on an island, it wouldn't work."

It'll take access, an uncertainty outside the Big Ten and the SEC, even in a possibly expanding CFP.

"I absolutely think the Pac-12 champion, whether it's the current model or a future model, should have one of those places at the [CFP] table," Haarlow said.

For WSU, Pac-12 titles would matter in multiple ways. They'd positively impact the program's sagging attendance in football and men's basketball. They'd undoubtedly affect the university's enrollment as well. After WSU's Pullman campus reported a total enrollment of 21,022 in the fall of 2018 (when coach Mike Leach and quarterback Gardner Minshew guided the Cougs to an 11-2 record and a No. 10 national ranking), that number dipped to 16,248 last fall.

So much has changed in the last seven years.

The Cougs must commit to changing, too.

"We've got to be out on the road, like we are now, making sure that people understand the need, how to get involved and how big of an impact that can make," Haarlow said. "Because we've seen so much change.

"You either commit to change or you commit to irrelevance. One of those is really hard. The other is catastrophic. So we've got to make sure we're getting by [with commitment] from our fanbase to move us forward."

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