Former Oklahoma State Athletic Director Terry Don Phillips Dies at 78

Former Oklahoma State athletic director Terry Don Phillips died this week. He was 78.

Phillips served as Oklahoma State’s AD from 1994 to 2002. He was hired in October of 1994 but got to OSU in August of ’95 after completing his second year of law school at Arkansas.

Some of his OSU legacy includes leading the way for a fund-raising campaign that resulted in Gallagher-Iba Arena being renovated, plans for updates to Lewis Field, the construction of Cowgirl Stadium and starting OSU’s equestrian program. Phillips hired Les Miles in 2001, which started to turn the fortunes of the football program.

“Terry Don’s vision for our athletic department inspired a new and greater belief in what we could be,” current OSU AD Chad Weiberg said. “He played a significant role in moving Oklahoma State Athletics forward and we will be forever grateful.”

Ten OSU student-athletes earned individual national titles under Phillips’ leadership — a tenure that also saw the men’s basketball team make the Final Four in 1995 and the Elite Eight in 2000 and the men’s golf team win national titles in 1995 and 2000.

Phillips was a football player at Arkansas in the 1960s and didn’t immediately get into the administrative side of things. He was a graduate assistant at Arkansas before being the defensive line coach and defensive front coordinator at Virginia Tech.

He got his first AD job at Liberty in 1980 before moving to Southwestern Louisiana in 1983. He returned to his alma mater as the senior associate AD in 1988 before taking the job in Stillwater.

He left Oklahoma State in 2002 for a job at Clemson. He’d spend 10 years running the athletic department at Clemson, where he promoted Dabo Swinney to the program’s coach, who would go on to lead the Tigers to a pair of national titles. Phillips retired in 2012.

“He had the vision to know what we needed to do before we did,” said OSU senior associate athletic director Larry Reece. “He showed us through the renovation of Gallagher-Iba Arena that we could do big things here. Terry Don is the reason we all wear orange. Before his arrival, we seem to wear every color but orange. His message was ‘next time I’ll wear orange.’”