Q and A With Director of Athletics, Gene Smith – Ohio State Buckeyes
5/4/2006 12:00:00 AM | General
May 4, 2006
Gene Smith recently celebrated a milestone in his career at The Ohio State University, concluding his first year as the Director of Athletics at the helm of OSU’s 36 intercollegiate athletic teams. As just the eighth director of athletics in the history of Buckeye sports, Smith has had a whirlwind first year that included numerous conference titles and a Fiesta Bowl championship as well as the conclusion of an NCAA investigation. Recently, Smith reflected on his first year at Ohio State as well as his future plans for the Scarlet and Gray.
How would you describe your fist year at Ohio State?
“It has been very enjoyable. I feel fortunate because I inherited from Andy (Geiger, previous director of athletics) a lot of good people and a program that recruits great student athletes. Besides the NCAA case and the O’Brien trial, everything’s been really enjoyable and I’ve had a good time.”
What have been some of the highlights this year?
“The ability to see great student-athletes compete and ultimately win championships. It started with football, and not just a Big Ten championship but winning a BCS bowl game against a quality opponent, then the other six Big Ten championships and we have some more spring sports that are lined up the have good seasons. It’s really refreshing to see high quality athletes perform and pursue championships.”
On the business side of athletics, you streamlined and reorganized the department. Any other directions you are looking to take the athletics department?
“We are going to be a little more strategic in our revenue generation approach and make sure we can generate revenue in other areas so we can pay off our bills, our debt service and handle increasing costs in tuition. So right now we are developing those plans and then we will begin to incorporate those plans and that takes a while. That’s a 12 to 18 month time frame to get though the planning and then get to the implementation.
“It’s taken me these first 12 months to do my assessment of the team members and then shape the structure and shape the team the way I would like it to be, to get to a point where you can begin planning strategically. My vision is to ultimately be able to just watch it operate. That’s what I want to get to. Move away from the micro-managing a little bit.”
What are the long term goals you see for the department when that becomes effective?
“We want to be a major financial asset to the University. We want to be able to help our president with other areas of the institution when we’re called upon to do so. We have an opportunity to generate revenue and we want to be able to help the University when we can. We are not quite there yet where we are comfortable doing that without risking some of our own financial situations. I want to get to a point where we are comfortable doing that. I’m trying to figure out what that number is, what should our budget be and what should our reserve be in order to be at a point where we can help other areas.”
Do you think that would make the University feel an even stronger connection to the athletics department?
“No doubt, yes. We are already doing that in a lot of ways, but we can do it at a bigger and higher level and at different areas of campus.”
Now that you’ve been here for a year, what is your vision of Ohio State athletics?
“We should continue our development to be a program that is regarded as the premiere program in the country. That is our aspiration and this year is a perfect example. We are performing at that level athletically. We do need to improve our academic performance in a number of areas. Fortunately we are on that trajectory. Football is our best example there. They are steadily getting better every year. We have a couple of other sports that need to move in that direction.
“We need to be the program that everyone aspires to emulate. We are not quite there yet. When our graduation rates are north of 75 percent and when we’re winning five, six, seven, eight conference championships every year, we’ll be there. As long as we’re competitively performing at a high level and we get our graduation rates up, and obviously manage ourselves in a fiscally responsible way, we should be the program everyone emulates. We are certainly in the Top 10 already, but I want to be number one. I want to have a program that everyone points to overall, in a number of areas, where we are excellent and we set the industry standard.”
