The search is finally over.

After going five months without an athletics director,… The search is finally over.

After going five months without an athletics director, Chancellor Mark Nordenberg announced on Friday the hiring of Jeff Long, former senior associate athletics director at Oklahoma, to fill the void left by Steve Pederson’s departure in December.

Long, who spent the past two years working with the Sooners program, has more than two decades of experience in collegiate athletics, spending time on both the administrative and coaching side.

“It would be a dramatic understatement to say that I am excited to be here and to be a member of the University of Pittsburgh athletics program,” Long said during a press conference, Friday. “I have a great respect for the academic and athletic traditions of this institution and am proud to become a part of it. My initial goal is to build upon the momentum that has been gathering the past several years.”

“In human terms, Jeff is a wonderful person,” Nordenberg said. “In terms of his professional abilities, Jeff is a real star. Everyone we talked to who knew Jeff’s work had the same things to say about him.”

Nordenberg went on to say that Long’s experience of working with some of “the country’s strongest athletics programs” as well as his tenure as the athletics director at Eastern Kentucky are what pointed Nordenberg in his direction. “He has done just about everything an athletic professional can do,” Nordenberg added. “Jeff was the top choice of the search committee and he became my top choice, as well.”

“This is just a great hire by Pitt,” Oklahoma men’s basketball head coach Kelvin Sampson said in a statement. “Jeff Long is just a tremendous, tremendous individual. The people in the Pittsburgh community will love working with and getting to know Jeff. They’ve hired a big-time winner.”

At Oklahoma, Long saw donations to the athletics department increase each year and helped create a new student ticket plan for football and men’s basketball.

“Unlike any place else in my career, going to Oklahoma was a stepping stone,” Long said. “It was an opportunity for me to get the experience at one of the best athletic programs in the country and use that as a springboard.”

Before working at Oklahoma, Long was the athletics director at Eastern Kentucky for two years and also served as associate athletics director for a short time at Virginia Tech. Prior to that, Long spent nearly a decade at Michigan, working his way up to an associate athletics director’s position there, as well.

Despite the traveling he has done in the past few years, Long stated that, unlike those who have recently left the Pitt athletics program, he considers working here to be his “dream job.”

“I expect to be here for a long time,” he said. “I certainly see this as an opportunity to join part of a team. I have a strong sense that this program is moving up in all phases.”

Long moves into the position less than two weeks after Marc Boehm announced that he had removed his name from consideration for the job. Boehm had served as interim athletics director since December.

“Marc made the decision on his own, with no offer in hand, and with the understanding that he would be considered for the position if he wished to be,” Nordenberg said. “Marc, as I think he indicated, made the decision that this was not the right set of responsibilities for him at this point in time.”

Long will formally begin his duties as athletic director by June 15 and, until then, senior associate athletics director Carol Sprague will serve as the interim athletics director.