​HOUSTON, TEXAS – AUGUST 15: Rice University President Reginald DesRoches, right, welcomes Tommy McClelland to the podium during a press conference announcing McClelland as the schools next director of athletics Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2023. (Kirk Sides/Houston Chronicle via Getty Images) According to ESPN’s Pete Thamel, the Purdue Boilermakers have their next man to lead the Athletic Department locked and loaded with an announcement coming soon. News began emerging yesterday, after what had amounted to complete silence during the search, that not only had Purdue identified their candidate but that a deal was almost in place and was to be finalized by the end of the week. The epitome of going from 0-60. So, who is this mystery man? I’ll let Thamel share it with you. Purdue has finalized a deal to hire Rice athletic director Tommy McClelland as athletic director, sources told ESPN on Tuesday.McClelland, 44, is a veteran in the space, as he has been a sitting athletic director for nearly two decades. That includes his nearly three years at Rice and stints at both McNeese (2008-13) and Louisiana Tech (2013-20).But the stint that has the most relevance for McClelland’s hire was a recent stop as Vanderbilt’s deputy athletic director, where he was the football sport administrator and ran external affairs and revenue generation.You might remember that back on June 5th we did a staff roundtable about the open AD position and what we wanted to see in Bobinski’s replacement. Here’s what I said I was looking for: The second job is basically a fundraising job (did I mention I worked with big donors, including former Minnesota Vikings players when I was working for Special Olympics Minnesota?). With NIL and other new forms of compensation implemented over the last decade or so the need for money is more important than ever. Teams are gobbling up money and if you want to stay competitive you’ve got to have the money to back it up. Purdue is struggling on the football field but if there’s one thing we learned from IU it’s that with the right amount of money and the right head coach anything is possible.If the stories about McClelland are true, Purdue really focused on the second part of the job by looking to hire a guy who has been known as a prolific fundraiser at both Rice and Vanderbilt. At Vandy he spearheaded a $300 million capital improvement campaign. That’s quite a chunk of change for any athletic department. At Rice he announced a $120 million stadium renovation but it’s unclear to me based on what I’ve read how much of that money has actually been raised so far. This is not to say that fundraising at Vandy and Rice is the same as fundraising at Purdue, both Rice and Vandy are private schools while Purdue is very obviously a public university. Also, Rice is in Houston, Texas and Vandy is located in Nashville, Tennessee. These are clearly much bigger cities with much more going on than in West Lafayette. What I AM saying though is that