UCLA Assistant Coach Named Chapman’s Athletic Director : College sports: After several years of coaching football, Dave Currey says he’s eager to embark on a career in athletic administration.

After almost a week of courting, Chapman College hired UCLA assistant football coach Dave Currey as its athletic director.

Currey was offered the position Thursday, three days after a search committee recommended to Chapman President Allen Koenig that Currey be hired. Tuesday, he accepted the offer.

Currey, 46, said the college’s “unique feel” attracted him to the campus. Currey’s previous college jobs have been at schools with larger student enrollments than Chapman’s 2,000.

“I’ve always had a great admiration for what these (small) colleges stand for,” Currey said.

Currey said becoming an athletic director has been his goal since getting his master’s degree in athletic administration from Stanford in 1970. His administrative ambitions were postponed, however, when Stanford hired him as an assistant football coach, and he later went on to become head coach at Cal State Long Beach and the University of Cincinnati. Last year, he was receivers coach at UCLA.

Before leaving Cincinnati, Currey was interim athletic director after Mike McGee left to become the athletic director at USC. McGee, who hired Currey as Cincinnati football coach, put Currey in touch with Chapman officials and gave him a recommendation.

Said Currey: “That’s one of the things they told me: ‘Dave Currey we know you’re highly qualified if an SC guy will recommend a Bruin.’ ”

In January, The Times reported that Currey and two other UCLA football assistants had been fired by UCLA Coach Terry Donahue in a staff overhaul following UCLA’s 3-7-1 season. However, both Currey and Donahue denied Tuesday that Currey had been fired.

Currey said after the season he decided to pursue an administrative position and told Donahue.

Donahue said Currey, who remains on the payroll at UCLA through June, will make a good athletic director because of his experience.

“He has a lot of skill and I think they are really fortunate to have someone of his reputation to be their athletic director,” Donahue said. “I think he’ll do a great job and we’ll miss him here.”

Currey will assume his duties July 1, replacing Tom Snell, who has been interim athletic director since Bob Boyd resigned in December.