EAST LANSING – In a year filled with important coaching hires, new contracts, and a ginormous media rights deal, Alan Haller has never had to look farther than his wrist to keep focus during his first 12 months as Michigan State’s athletic director.
There, every day, he sees the name “Olivia Long", the letters LIV and ON highlighted. Her parents gave Haller that wristband a year ago at the Spartans’ first home football game, days after he began as MSU’s AD, two weeks after Long, the captain of MSU’s rowing team, died in car crash on her way back to campus.