Dick Dull

After receiving a Juris Doctor degree, he took a pay cut from $22,000 to $8,500 and became an assistant ticket manager at his alma mater.^[2] He rose through the ranks of the Maryland athletic department and became athletic director in 1981, succeeding Jim Kehoe.^[5] In January 1982, Dull hired Bobby Ross to succeed Jerry Claiborne as the school's head football coach.^[6] The hire was somewhat surprising as Ross, then an assistant coach for the Kansas City Chiefs, was not a high-profile coach. Ross described himself as a "no name".^[7] Nevertheless, Maryland had great success under Ross, and quarterback Boomer Esiason excelled in his pro-style offense.^[8]

During Dull's tenure, the Maryland football and men's basketball teams both secured ACC championships, and the women's basketball team advanced to the Final Four.^[2] Dull was serving as athletic director when Maryland basketball star Len Bias died from a cocaine-induced heart attack in 1986.^[2] He resigned his post on November 4 citing the incident.^[1] He agreed to remain on the staff for one year as an athletic and policy advisor.^[1]

Bias's death and the controversy it created affected Dull. The Baltimore Sun called Dull "one of the rising stars" in his profession at the time of the incident.^[9] Dull later said, "I survived it. No one can ever bring Len Bias back, and that I regret. He was a wonderful young man."^[2] In 1987, the University of Texas at El Paso offered Dull a job as its athletic director,^[10] but he eventually declined the offer.^[11] In the decade following Bias' death, Dull worked in real estate, consulting, and lived off of his savings.^[2] In two years during that period, he earned less than $7,500, which was less than required to file an income tax return.^[2] He said, "I could not get a job interview (in athletics) for 10 years."^[2]

In 1996, he was a candidate for athletic director at Radford University.^[12] That year, he was hired as the athletic director at the University of Nebraska at Kearney, a Division II school.^[13] In 1999 while the athletic director at Moravian College,^[14] he was hired by California State University, Northridge, his first Division I athletic director job since Maryland. The hiring was controversial, and some members of the university's advisory board demanded it be reviewed and overturned.^[15][16] In 2001, Northridge dropped its football program on Dull's recommendation to the Board of Trustees.^[17] He stepped down in 2005.^[18]

Dull eventually retired,^[2] but returned to his work as the athletic director of Belmont Abbey College in June 2007.^[17] In 2008, he established an athletic hall of fame at the school.^[19] In August 2009, Dull resigned from Belmont Abbey with a statement that he had been hired for a transition to a full-time athletic director and that the transition period had elapsed.^[20]

Dull died on January 6, 2026, at the age of 80.^[21]