Steve Pederson was athletic director (AD) at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the University of Pittsburgh. He began his career as a college football recruiting coordinator at Ohio State, Tennessee, and Nebraska, where he assembled No. 1 ranked recruiting classes. He has worked with five College Football Hall of Fame football coaches.
First Pittsburgh tenure
Pederson was hired as the 10th athletic director of the University of Pittsburgh on October 28, 1996, at 39 years old. He quickly implemented several sweeping and controversial changes to resurrect an athletic program that had fallen on hard times. He removed several employees of the athletic department and in the spring of 1997 changed and standardized the athletic uniforms, colors, and logos used by Pittsburgh Athletic Department to emphasize the heritage and location of the University. This involved demphasizing the traditional use of "Pitt" in preference for the use of "Pittsburgh" to refer to the school in press releases and in signage. In doing so, he also abandoned the use of the traditional "Pitt script" logo that had adorned football helmets since 1973. New logos designed by Peter Moore that utilized a "torch-cut" font, which alluded to the heritage of Pittsburgh's steel industry, were introduced along with a new Panther logo with a similar torch-cut style. The blue and gold shades used by the athletic department, previously royal to navy blue and yellow to mustard gold, were also changed to midnight blue and vegas gold. In addition, the existing Golden Panther booster club organization was scrapped and replaced with a new club termed Team Pittsburgh. These moves were controversial among fans, boosters and traditionalists of the University of Pittsburgh athletic teams.
Early in Pederson's tenure, he also moved to replace then head football coach Johnny Majors with Walt Harris who took Pitt to the Liberty Bowl, Pitt's first bowl in eight seasons, in his first season as head coach in 1997. Pederson also hired Ben Howland as Pitt's head men's basketball coach in 1999 to replace Ralph Willard. Howland proceeded to take Pitt to its first NCAA Tournament in nine seasons. In addition to Harris and Howland, Pederson hires included Alonzo Webb for track and field, Traci Waites for women's basketball, Joe Jordano for baseball, and Chris Beerman for volleyball. All six of these coaching hires went on to win Big East Conference Coach-of-the-Year honors in their respective sports. Pederson retired the football jerseys of former Panther greats Mike Ditka, Marshall Goldberg, Joe Schmidt, and Mark May. Pederson significantly elevated the athletic department's fundraising efforts, some of which was through implementing controversial donor requirements for men's basketball seating.
Among the most controversial decisions of Pederson's first tenure at Pittsburgh was the demolition of Pitt Stadium, which had served as the home for Pitt's football team, along with other sports, for 75 years. The Stadium was razed following the 1999 season to make way for the construction of the Petersen Events Center. The football team moved their home games permanently to newly constructed Heinz Field in 2001 after a one-year temporary stop at Three Rivers Stadium for the 2000 season. Pederson also oversaw the move of the football team into state-of-the art practice facilities that he helped to design at the UPMC Sports Performance Complex in 2000 as well as a refurbishment and expansion of Fitzgerald Field House in 1999.
In 2002, Pederson was awarded the General Robert R. Neyland Athletic Director Award which is presented by the All-American Football Foundation for outstanding administrative achievement. Legendary sports historian and commentator Beano Cook said Pederson "rebuilt Pitt athletics. He saved Pitt sports."
Pederson left Pitt to return to his alma mater, the University of Nebraska where he assumed athletic director duties in December 2002.
Nebraska tenure
Pederson was hired as Nebraska's 12th athletic director on December 20, 2002. After records of 7–7 and 9–3 in the previous two seasons, Pederson fired head football coach Frank Solich. Pederson justified the move by stating he would not "let Nebraska gravitate into mediocrity" and would not "surrender the Big 12 to Oklahoma and Texas". Solich's 58 wins during his first six seasons as Nebraska's head coach exceeded that of his two College Football Hall of Fame predecessors: Bob Devaney (53 wins) and Tom Osborne (55 wins).