Washington Huskies hires senior associate AD

Scott Woodward's restructuring of the Washington athletic department began in earnest Friday with his first significant hire since he was named athletic director last month.

Stephanie Rempe was named senior associate director of athletics and senior woman administrator, replacing Marie Tuite, who was released two weeks ago after working at UW for 14 years. Rempe has been a senior administrator at Oklahoma since 2003.

Woodward announced in an e-mail to staffers that also served as his official statement on Tuite's departure that he simply wanted to go in a different direction. He said then he expected to make a hire within weeks, and that came Friday with the naming of Rempe.

However, Rempe will have additional duties, also overseeing the men's basketball program along with the women's basketball program and some Olympic sports, as well as other duties to be determined. Woodward's vision is to spread out oversight of the department's 23 sports among more of the senior associate ADs.

The Huskies still have one other senior associate AD position to fill. Jeff Compher, an executive associate AD who oversaw the day-to-day duties of the football and men's basketball programs, left in the spring to become the AD at Northern Illinois. Ken Winstead, who was the associate AD for fund development, also resigned and the school recently announced his spot will be filled by Roy Shick, hired in late August and promoted to take over Winstead's duties.

Rempe (pronounced Remp) will be UW's liaison to the Pac-10 and NCAA committees related to women's athletics.

Rempe, a 1993 Arizona graduate, has been Oklahoma's administrator for men's basketball, volleyball, men's and women's gymnastics, wrestling and softball. She has supervised women's basketball, soccer, men's and women's cross country, track and field, the sports medicine program and the strength and conditioning program.

"We are really fortunate to add Stephanie as a senior member of our athletics staff," Woodward said in a news release. "She is a top-notch administrator who has earned a great deal of respect among her peers throughout the country."

She will begin her duties at Washington in mid-November.

Bob Condotta: 206-515-5699 or bcondotta@seattletimes.com