Report: St. John's finalizing deal to hire Fordham athletic director Ed Kull

NEW YORK (AP) — St. John's is negotiating a deal to make Fordham athletic director Ed Kull its next AD, a person with knowledge of the situation told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

The person spoke on condition of anonymity because a deal was not yet complete.

St. John's has been without an athletic director since Mike Cragg and the school mutually agreed to part ways after he spent six years at the Big East school in Queens.

Kull was identified as one of SJU's top candidates to become basketball coach Rick Pitino's next boss weeks ago, according to the person.

ESPN first reported St. John's was targeting Krull as AD.

Kull has been at Fordham since February 2021 and worked at St. John's from 2011-17, including a stint as vice president of athletics where he worked on revenue-generation projects for the university president.

The Queens native attended Stony Brook on Long Island.

Under Kull, Fordham's longtime struggling Atlantic 10 conference basketball program found some succecss under the two coaches he hired, Kyle Neptune and Keith Urgo.

Neptune left after one season to return to Villanova and replace Jay Wright as head coach. Urgo led the Rams to their best season in three decades in 2022-23.

Fordham's football team made the FCS playoffs in 2022 and its earned conference titles and NCAA berths in water polo, men’s soccer, softball and women’s tennis under Kull.

___

Follow Ralph D. Russo at https://twitter.com/ralphDrussoAP