Chris McIntosh

Raised in the village, he still frames the job the way Pewaukee framed the kid: develop people who can win Saturdays and the decades after.

He was born in Pewaukee on February 20, 1977, and played at Pewaukee High School. Late in high school, after a wrestling state title, he tore knee ligaments, redshirted at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, then anchored the offensive line for back-to-back Rose Bowl champions. In 1999 he was a unanimous All-American and Big Ten Offensive Lineman of the Year. Seattle took him twenty-second overall in 2000. He started ten games as a rookie before a neck injury limited him and forced retirement before the 2003 season. After health-and-wellness startups, Barry Alvarez recruited him back in 2014 as business-development lead; as associate athletic director he helped land Wisconsin’s ten-year Under Armour apparel deal valued at more than $100 million. He rose to deputy AD, entered the UW Athletic Hall of Fame in 2014—the same year he rejoined the department—and succeeded Alvarez in 2021, just the third Wisconsin athletic director since 1989. His tenure covered the Luke Fickell and Mike Hastings hires, a major football practice-facility project, and the NIL and transfer upheaval. A July 2024 five-year extension set 2024–25 compensation at $1.45 million.

In April 2026 he resigned to become the Big Ten’s first Deputy Commissioner for Strategy. A first-generation college graduate with UW degrees in agricultural economics and educational leadership, he belongs on the Pewaukee page by birth and high school, with Madison as the career arc that followed.