Athletics Director of the Year Announced by Sports Business Journal – Ohio State Buckeyes
5/30/2008 12:00:00 AM | General
Ohio State’s Gene Smith among four finalists
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Gene Smith, assistant vice president and director of athletics at The Ohio State University, was one of four finalists in the 2007-08 Athletic Director of the Year category for the inaugural Sports Business Awards presented by Street & Smith’s SportsBusiness Journal and SportsBusiness Daily Thursday in New York City.
Smith, named Ohio State director of athletics March 5, 2005, joined Jeff Hathaway of the University of Connecticut, Lew Perkins from the University of Kansas and Ron Wellman of Wake Forest University as finalists for the award. Wellman was announced the winner at the ceremony Thursday at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel.
OhioState currently stands third overall in the 2008 Division I U.S. Sports Academy Directors’ Cup Standings. Academically, Buckeye student-athletes set a record this year with 475 OSU Scholar-Athlete award recipients. For the sixth-consecutive year, OhioState ranked first among the 11 Big Ten schools in Academic All-Big Ten selections, totaling 266 in 2007-08.
In addition, The Ohio State department of athletics has been selected to receive a Diversity in Athletics Award in the category of Overall Excellence in Diversity, to be presented June 11 at the 2008 National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics Convention.
For more information on the 2008 Sports Business Journal Awards, please visit www.sportsbusinessjournal.com.
About Ohio State Athletics
The Ohio State University Department of Athletics sponsors 36 fully funded varsity teams 17 for women, 16 for men and three co-educational. The department is committed to providing its more than 900 student-athletes with the finest in academic and athletics support in order to ensure a quality and life-enhancing experience. The Department of Athletics is completely self-supporting and receives no university monies, tax dollars or student fees. In Fiscal Year 2007-08, the Department of Athletics will transfer back to the University more than $25 million in assessments, including nearly $17 million in grant-in-aid costs.
