OU President Joseph Harroz Jr., Chair and Special Adviser to the President for OU Athletics Randall Stephenson and athletic director Roger Denny held Denny's introductory press conference Wednesday.
Here are takeaways:
Evolving with college sports
Harroz emphasized that OU hired Denny with the intention to be on the front end in keeping up with the evolving landscape of college sports, including name, image and likeness deals and revenue sharing.
The NCAA began allowing NIL deals through third parties in July 2021 with the NCAA v. Alston court case. It later allowed universities to directly pay athletes through revenue sharing in July 2025 through the House vs. NCAA settlement.
Denny earned a bachelor’s degree from Southeast Missouri State University, a law degree from St. Louis University, an LLM degree in tax law from Washington University in St. Louis and had 15 years of law experience before stepping into college athletics in 2021 as Illinois’ deputy athletic director and chief operating officer. He was an attorney at the St. Louis office of law firm Spencer Fane LLP in 2015-21 with an industry focus on sports businesses. He advised clients on transactional matters, including mergers and acquisitions, executive compensation and taxation, private equity and corporate finance during his time with Spencer Fane LLP.
"The question was, 'Can we be truly innovative to meet this moment in college athletics, understanding what the disruption is?'" Harroz said. "The key is, 'How do you make sure you have the skill sets not just to compete in this new era, not just to maintain our historic competitiveness, but can we use this moment to increase dominance, build dynasties and help shape at the national level what a sustainable model for college athletics can be?'"
Denny said that leaving law for athletics was a risk but a choice he grew to love.
"The real risk was walking away from the practice of law, ..." Denny said. "I remember walking out onto our football field (when Illinois) played Nebraska, and it hit me like a ton of bricks. It was the purpose that I had been seeking. It gave me that feeling that I was looking for every day."
Roger Denny helping University North Park district
Denny comes with experience to help Norman implement its Rock Creek Entertainment District in University North Park, which would include a new basketball arena.
While he was attorney in for Spencer Fane LLP, Denny assisted the financing of Ballpark Village in St. Louis, which took seven years and required endurance, according to Denny.
"We'll stay in the fight longer than anyone else, and that's exactly what we had to do in that deal," Denny said. "That deal was the first, one of the first projects I ever worked on, and it took almost seven years, if I recall correctly, before we got it done.
Denny said that this perseverance translate to how he handles athletics and while he looks to help with the UNP district.
"It's not just on the field; it's not how we compete. It's in everything we do. You have to stay in it," Denny said. "And big projects like that aren't easy, and a lot of them fall apart just because of the fatigue that comes with them. And the real work that goes into it is keeping the folks engaged, so that, as that fatigue sets in, no one ever loses sight of all the reasons on the front end we said that (were) so important. ... That's what we'll look to do (with UNP)."
Commitment over alignment
Denny addressed his perspective on how the buzz word, "alignment," relates to how he looks to build OU athletics.
During head football coach Brent Venables' introductory press conference, he praised the term and said that, at OU, the "alignment is very real and "very tangible." Venables, who once considered the Auburn head coaching job, also stated then that the alignment is different at OU.
"I really didn't think we had the alignment at Auburn that we have here at Oklahoma,” Venables said.
The term represents when the president, athletic director, head coach and boosters are all on the same page. Denny, though, took it a step further during his introductory.
"You hear a lot in our business about alignment. That's in every one of these press conferences," Denny said. "That's a word you're going to hear. I would tell you, it's not alignment here. It is all-out commitment. ... Everyone I've spoken to at this university, around this campus, in this community, more recently in our athletics department, getting to know some of the staff members, they are absolutely committed to this program and the success of this program."
