Oklahoma Announces Front Office Hires

BY OU MEDIA RELATIONS

The University of Oklahoma Athletics Department announced Monday the hiring of several football staff members, pending OU Board of Regents approval this week. Most of the hires are in OU's new front office as the Sooners move closer to a professionalized model of college football.

General Manager for Football Jim Nagy, who joined the Sooners in February, has added the following individuals to his front office staff:

• Lake Dawson, Senior Assistant General Manager
• Taylor Redd, Assistant General Manager
• Drew Hill, Director of Scouting
• Kale Pearson, Director of High School Scouting
• Stacey Ford, Director of Player Personnel and Retainment
• Charlie Parkinson, Assistant Director of College Scouting

Charlie Parkinson, Assistant Director of College Scouting

"This is an exciting time for Oklahoma Football,” said Nagy. “It has been a deliberate process building the first front office in program history and I couldn't be happier with how it came together. We have a great blend of diverse backgrounds and complementary skill sets from both the NFL and collegiate levels and we feel the cumulative evaluation experience will give us a competitive advantage moving forward. Going through an incredibly successful first official visit weekend the past few days has only affirmed we have uniquely positioned ourselves to build elite rosters.”

Including Nagy, his staff has 60 years of combined experience in collegiate football and 67 years of NFL experience. Collectively, teams they were associated with participated in 36 bowl games and nine Super Bowls, and won five Super Bowl titles.

“I want to credit Coach Venables for his support and leadership during this transition time,” added Nagy. “The buy-in from Brent and his coaches has been tremendous."

Lake Dawson, Senior Assistant General Manager

After a six-year career with the Kansas City Chiefs and Indianapolis Colts as a wide receiver, Dawson has spent the past 25 years in various NFL scouting and front office roles. He started his post-playing career with the Seattle Seahawks (2001-07) as a pro scout/personnel assistant and then assistant director of pro personnel before moving to the Tennessee Titans (2007-15) where he served as director of pro personnel, vice president of football operations and vice president of player personnel. Dawson was hired by the Cleveland Browns as a senior personnel executive in 2016 and by the Buffalo Bills as assistant director of college scouting in 2017. The Bills later elevated him to senior executive of personnel. A 1994 Notre Dame graduate, he was picked in the third round of the 1994 NFL Draft by Kansas City. He earned his MBA from Indiana in 2022 and is pursuing a doctorate degree from Memphis.

Taylor Redd, Assistant General Manager

Redd spent six years in the New England Patriots scouting department, first as a scouting assistant (2018-20) then as a Northeast and Midwest area scout (2020-24). Most recently, he served as a senior consultant with The Athlete Group. Prior to his time with the Patriots, Redd was the director of player personnel and NFL liaison from 2017-18 at Wake Forest. He was also a graduate assistant (2015-17) and a recruiting assistant and offensive quality control staffer (2014-15) with the Demon Deacons. Redd served as a student assistant to the offensive coordinator at Bowling Green where he earned his bachelor's degree in sports management and business in 2014. He earned his master’s in liberal studies from Wake Forest in 2016.

Drew Hill, Director of Scouting

Hill, who begins his 12th season at OU and first as director of scouting, spent the previous 11 years as the Sooners' director of player personnel under head coaches Bob Stoops, Lincoln Riley and Brent Venables. He started his career with the Atlanta Falcons as a college scouting assistant (1998-2000) before serving as assistant director of football operations at Southern Miss (2001-03). In 2004, Fresno State hired him as football operations coordinator, a role in which he served for eight years before going to Colorado State as director of player personnel for the 2012 and '13 seasons. He graduated from Southern Miss in 2002 with a degree in sports administration.

Kale Pearson, Director of High School Scouting

Pearson, who is from Tulsa, Okla., has spent the last three years as football general manager at the U.S. Air Force Academy, where he ran the recruiting department and served as NFL liaison and assistant quarterbacks coach. He was also a graduate assistant at Air Force from 2015-17 following his playing career at the academy. He was the quarterback and a team captain in 2014, leading the Falcons to the Commander-In-Chief trophy that year. He served with the U.S. Air Force as a logistics readiness officer from 2016-21 and worked in private industry before returning to AFA as football general manager. Pearson graduated from the Air Force Academy in 2015 with a bachelor's degree in management.

Stacey Ford, Director of Player Personnel and Retainment

Ford comes to Oklahoma after spending the last three years in FBS recruiting offices. At UCLA last year, he was the director of player personnel, and for two years prior to that served as the director of recruiting at Washington State. He also spent time as a player personnel scout intern with the Oakland Raiders during the summer of 2016. In between, he was a high school coach in Los Angeles from 2016-22, coaching linebackers at Cathedral High School from 2016-18 before moving to Warren High School to serve as assistant head coach and defensive coordinator from 2019-22. Ford played outside linebacker at Tuskegee University, where he graduated in 2016 with a bachelor's degree in psychology. He also earned a sports management certificate in 2016 from Sports Management Worldwide.

Charlie Parkinson, Assistant Director of College Scouting

Most recently, Parkinson was a scouting assistant with the Reese's Senior Bowl, evaluating and cross-checking 2025 draft prospects. He spent three years (2021-24) with The 33rd Team, serving first as a scout and content creator, evaluating college prospects, and then as a talent assistant and scout, providing information to former NFL coaches and executives to support weekly NFL and college football content. Parkinson worked as a football recruiting assistant at his alma mater, Amherst College, during the summer of 2023 and was a football recruiting and player personnel assistant at Wake Forest last year before joining the Senior Bowl staff. He played defensive end and tight end collegiately and earned his bachelor's degree in history in 2023.

Additionally, OU announced Monday it has hired Jonathan Gress as head football athletic trainer. A Norman native, Gress had served since 2019 as director of rehabilitation for the New Orleans Saints, where his primary responsibilities included creating and implementing comprehensive treatment plans for all athletes, development and administration of risk assessments and subsequent injury reduction programs, and evaluation of athletic injuries and illnesses. He joined the Saints in 2018 as assistant athletic trainer/physical therapist, providing support in all aspects of athlete care.

Gress also served as assistant athletic trainer/physical therapist for the Miami Dolphins (2014-18) and at the University of Arizona (2010-14). He earned master's degrees from the OU Health Sciences Center (2008 in physical therapy) and the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (2010 in athletic training).