Big Ten athletic departments list 139 equipment staff positions across 18 of the 18 covered schools as of 3 Nov 2026 — 2% of the conference's 6,872 tracked positions, an average of 7.7 per department that has the function. The Ohio State University has the most (12). In the last 90 days Whistle detected 1 hire, 2 departures and 6 title changes in these roles.
Data as of 3 Nov 2026.
Source: the official athletics staff directories of the 18 covered Big Ten schools, re-read on a rolling schedule; roles classified from published titles; changes from successive reads.
One row per covered department. "Positions" counts current (non-departed) staff whose classified role or published title places them in equipment; changes are non-baseline hires, departures and title changes in those positions over the last 90 days, with same-day directory re-reads excluded.
| School | Division | Equipment positions | All tracked positions | Hires (90d) | Departures (90d) | Title changes (90d) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Ohio State University | Division I | 12 | 634 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Pennsylvania State University | Division I | 11 | 476 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Purdue University | Division I | 10 | 355 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| University of Michigan | Division I | 10 | 496 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| University of Washington | Division I | 10 | 389 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| University of Wisconsin–Madison | Division I | 9 | 461 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| University of Oregon | Division I | 8 | 245 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Michigan State University | Division I | 7 | 302 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Northwestern University | Division I | 7 | 302 | 0 | 0 | 4 |
| Rutgers University | Division I | 7 | 382 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| University of California, Los Angeles | Division I | 7 | 373 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| University of Maryland | Division I | 7 | 358 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| University of Minnesota | Division I | 7 | 386 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign | Division I | 6 | 383 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| University of Iowa | Division I | 6 | 302 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| University of Nebraska–Lincoln | Division I | 6 | 397 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| University of Southern California | Division I | 5 | 330 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Indiana University Bloomington | Division I | 4 | 301 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
Equipment is the buying group for apparel and footwear brands, protective equipment, laundry and inventory systems, team-store and licensing vendors. Typical titles in this group: Director of Equipment Operations; Equipment Manager, Football; Assistant Equipment Manager. Whistle customers filter these positions by conference, school, state and sport, see each person's name, title and contact details where the directory publishes them, and get an alert when one of the positions changes hands.
Positions are counted from each person's published job title, classified into Whistle's role vocabulary (shared/staff-roles.ts); this group is the "equipment" role.
Change counts compare successive reads of each school's official directory; a school's first extraction and any day on which 25% or more of a roster appears or disappears at once (a re-read, not turnover) are excluded. This page is published when at least 3 covered Big Ten schools have the function and they list at least 10 positions between them; smaller combinations are kept out of search indexes.
139 current positions across 18 covered Big Ten athletic departments as of 3 Nov 2026; The Ohio State University lists the most (12).
The Ohio State University, with 12 equipment staff positions out of 634 tracked positions.
9 changes in the last 90 days: 1 hire, 2 departures, 6 title changes, after excluding first reads and same-day re-reads.
From the staff directories athletic departments publish on their official websites, read automatically on a rolling schedule (NCAA Division I roughly weekly, Division II and III every three to four weeks). Whistle never publishes names, emails or phone numbers on public pages; staff can remove their details at any time at gowhistle.io/remove-my-info.