The news of Norwood Teague’s appointment ended a swift search that began just more than two months ago, when Joel Maturi announced his retirement.

Maturi’s Feb. 2 announcement ended more than a year of speculation about his future with the University of Minnesota.

“It makes a lot of sense to make a change now,” he said at the press conference regarding his retirement with University President Eric Kaler at his side. “We have a new president, and we have an old athletics director.”

Former President Bob Bruininks plucked Maturi from the same post at Miami University in Ohio in 2002. Struggling teams and the construction of TCF Bank Stadium marked Maturi’s decade at the helm of University of Minnesota athletics.

He’ll step down as athletics director June 30 but won’t leave the University. He’ll spend a year as a special assistant to Kaler, helping with fundraising, special projects and teaching and designing courses in the College of Education and Human Development’s kinesiology department.

For that year, he’ll receive the same $345,000 salary — plus benefits and contributions to his retirement fund — he’s collected since his last contract extension began in 2009. It will be paid using University of Minnesota Foundation money, not taxpayer funds.

Maturi said at his retirement press conference that his successes and failures with the athletics department were “in the eye of the beholder.”

“I’m not naive,” he said. “Some decisions were a whole lot better than others, but that’s a reality of life.”