Tommy McClelland didn't mince words in his second day as Rice University's athletic director.

"Rice Stadium has to be addressed, in my opinion, in a drastic way," McClelland said to Houston Chronicle's Joseph Duarte.

McClelland, who'd spent the previous two-plus years serving as the deputy athletics director at Vanderbilt Univesity, was hired July 30 to replace the departed Joe Karlgaard. Most recently, McClelland helped lead the Vandy United campaign, the largest athletics fundraising campaign in school history totaling over $300 million for Vanderbilt's athletic facilities. He'll have a similar standard of academic excellence to uphold at Rice.

"We will do our part to advance the mission and integrity of Rice University," McClelland said. "Athletics is not the most important thing on this campus, not by a long shot. But, our sports programs do provide the widest lens in which people get to view the global impact that is happening all over this campus.”

But at his introductory press conference Tuesday, McClelland spoke of the long journey he underwent to reach Rice.

He was a walk-on football player and track athlete at Northwestern State who always thought he'd end up as a coach until Greg Burke, the school's longtime athletic director, influenced him to think about a career in administration. He became the youngest Division I athletic director in 2008 when he signed on with McNeese State at 26 years old. His experience as Lousiana Tech's athletic director from 2013-2020, however, has perhaps most prepared him for this moment. He's a new athletic director for Rice as they transition in their first year in the American Athletic Conference, much as he was a first-year AD for Louisiana Tech's first year in Conference USA.

Karlgaard, Rice's former AD, laid the foundation for Rice Stadium's revamp, opening the Brian Patterson Sports Performance Center in 2016 and completing the first phase of a stadium modernization project in September 2022. Yet McClelland knows there's still plenty of work to be done to lure fans. According to D1.tracker, the Owls' already spotty attendance has fallen 6.61% in the last five seasons, hitting an average of 19,011 in last year in a 47,000-seat Rice Stadium.

While McClelland acknowledged rapid change won't come right away as he adapts to the new environment by first observing and learning, he has a clear goal in mind.

"My desire is to grow us to a level that when people think of elite academic universities competing at the highest level in college athletics, the first program they think of is Rice," McClelland said. "That is our north star.”