College Athletic's MVP Over the Years Bill Hancock Announces Retirement Plan

STILLWATER – Bill Hancock is arguably the most powerful man in modern college athletics. The guy I first met as a cub reporter at KTVY Channel Four in Oklahoma City when going on the Big Eight Skywriter’s Tours, rose from associate commissioner of the Big Eight to eventually the executive director of the NCAA Basketball Championships and the Final Four. Under Hancock’s leadership the Final Four expanded, grew a massive television audience, and made March Madness one of the top events and concepts in all of sports, not just college athletics. It was a no brainer when football looked to create a similar massive event with a four-team playoff and a committee making the selections that Hancock was the right man to head it up as executive director of the College Football Playoff. Now, Hancock has, as always, in intelligent and considerate fashion laid out a plan for someone else to take on his job and follow his massive footsteps. He’ll help them fill those shoes as that is Bill Hancock’s way. 

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Hancock enjoys passing out the CFP trophy. He enjoys the success of others, always has.

Hancock announced he will leave the College Football Playoff when his contract expires Feb. 1, 2025

I’ve always felt the true measure of a person is how they make others feel. While he has throughout his career been one of the most important men in college sports, Bill Hancock had the great gift and tremendous personal habit of making those people around him feel most important. 

Hancock is a graduate of the University of Oklahoma and a proud Sooner, but when his son Will went to work as the basketball SID for Eddie Sutton’s teams at Oklahoma State and married Cowgirls soccer coach and now senior women’s administrator Karen Hancock he was a Cowboy as well. Then, in what had to be the worst moment of his life along with his wife Nicki, I found Hancock making others feel better and helping them deal with the terrible grief when Will and nine other men were lost in the 2001 plane crash as Oklahoma State returned from a basketball road trip to Colorado. 

Hancock went on to share his grief and feelings in writing about a cross country cycling trip he made in grief. His book, Riding with the Blue Moth has helped many others understand their feelings and deal with grief. 

Omaha World/Big Eight Conference

I promise Bill Hancock is in this Big 8 Skywriters picture.

Bill Hancock is one of the most intelligent, humble, fair, and inspirational out of all people I have come in contact in my life. College athletics will need a special person to climb in and keep us from having a huge vaccum in those areas when he steps aside. 

We have been very fortunate, all of us that work in, cover, and care for college athletics to have someone like Bill Hancock helping make critical decisions and moving the college athletics platform forward. It’s a shame that Hancock wasn’t enlisted to guide the NIL movement forward. It wouldn’t be the mess that it is today. 

Hancock would even help correct your English. Something I needed in my early reporting days. It was natural as Nicki is a retired English teach and Hancock came from a newspaper family, proud of it.. He will tell you one of his most important rewarding jobs was his four years as editor of his hometown and family newspaper. the Hobart (Okla.) Democrat Chief. 

Hancock naturally wants to make it easier for his successor at the College Football Playoff.

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Eloquent and respectful are two more words that describe Bill Hancock.

“The plan was established several years ago for me to notify the CFP Board of Managers a year in advance if I decided to step aside, in order to provide ample time to plan a smooth transition to the next executive director,” Hancock said.  “I’m advising the board now, so the new executive director will have a long on-ramp, as he or she prepares to guide the CFP into the 12-team era.” 

He has plenty of loving family with son Nate Hancock, and his wife, Kristin living in Overland Park, Kansas; Will’s wife, their daughter-in-law Karen Hancock at Oklahoma State University.  Then the grandchildren with Andie Hancock, a 2023 graduate of Northwestern University; Will Hancock, a junior at Webster University’s Sargent Conservatory of Theatre Arts in St. Louis; and Jack Hancock, a senior at Blue Valley North high school in suburban Kansas City. 

My life is truly richer for knowing Bill Hancock. My lone regret is not retiring from active media earlier because I was hoping that BIll could help me get that retired media position on the College Football Playoff Selection Committee. 

Seriously, best wishes to Bill Hancock, his wife Nicki, and family. Thank you seems insufficient, but thanks for all you’ve done for college athletics!