Southern Oregon’s Matt Sayre offers intriguing choice for Eastern Washington AD

Could a former Eastern Washington quarterback be lured back to become its next athletic director?

Matt Sayre isn’t saying, but his name has surfaced as a potential candidate at EWU.

“I’m not prepared to talk about this at this time,” said Sayre, the athletic director at Southern Oregon, where in 2010 he was hired by none other than current EWU president Mary Cullinan.

Cullinan, the president at the Ashland, Oregon, school from 2006 to 2014, named Sayre as interim AD in 2008 before giving him the permanent position.

Since then, Sayre has overseen unprecedented success, finishing in the top 20 each of the last three years in the NAIA Directors’ Cup, an all-sports award.

“It’s been a great run and I think we’ve put our school and the athletic department on a great trajectory,” said the 48-year-old Sayre, who played quarterback at Eastern in 1989 and 1989 before transferring to Western Washington in 1990.

Sayre has presided over record fundraising efforts at the NAIA school, including a $1.5 million dollar gift for the new basketball pavilion.

Sayre was named in the Cascade Conference Athletic Director of the Year following the 2014-15 season, then again following the 2015-16 season.

“Dr. Cullinan has spoken highly of him on several occasions,” one EWU employee told The Spokesman-Review.