Dispatch
4/20
Good sports
Smith’s team tightens reins on OSU athletic programs
Thursday, April 20, 2006
Barnet D . Wolf
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
<!--PHOTOS--> <table class="phototableright" align="right" border="0"> <!-- begin large ad code --> <tbody><tr><td> <table align="center"> <tbody><tr><td align="center">
</td></tr> <tr><td class="credit" width="200"> JEFF HINCKLEY DISPATCH </td></tr> <tr><td class="cutline" width="200">OSU athletics director Gene Smith, foreground, with senior associate directors, from left, Tom Hof, Susan Henderson and Miechelle Willis </td></tr> <tr><td align="center">
</td></tr> </tbody></table> </td></tr> </tbody> </table>
Gene Smith spent a good part of his first year as Ohio State University’s athletics director stamping out fires related to NCAA infractions, legal issues and boosters doling out goodies to athletes.
But Smith also found time to restructure his department to make it more efficient and effective.
"We need to integrate more and more of our development with marketing and our brand management," Smith said. "We were not collaborating across these units adequately."
Now, he said, the program focuses on "best business practices."
Ohio State’s intercollegiate athletics program is the nation’s largest, with 36 sports and a $90 million annual budget.
Many think, as Smith does, that college-sports programs need to operate like a business to pay their own way and not encumber their universities.
"Clearly in an era in which most athletic departments are told to be self-sufficient, they should look more like the way a business is structured," said Paul Swangard, managing director of the Warsaw Sports Marketing Center at the University of Oregon.
OSU’s athletics department earns a profit most years and has built up enough in reserve to cover any annual shortfalls.
Smith’s reorganization plan looks to maintain that financial strength but improve the department’s efficiency. He also has set his sights on evaluating staff better and finding ways to build more support for all OSU sports.
The approach is similar to that fashioned by Smith at Iowa State and Arizona State universities, when he oversaw the athletics programs there.
Smith’s administrative structure is tighter than it had been previously at OSU. It reduces the number of people reporting to him from nine administrators and coaches to four.
Three of them are newly appointed senior associate athletic directors: Susan Henderson, who oversees finances and operation; Tom Hof, external relations; and Miechelle Willis, student services and sports administration. Football coach Jim Tressel also reports directly to Smith.
Although the structure of OSU’s athletics department has been in some ways streamlined, it continues to have roughly the same number of full-time employees, 308, and an annual $28 million payroll.
The restructuring received some attention when announced in February because it shifts Heather Lyke Catalano, the department’s associate athletics director for compliance, to one of three associate athletics directors overseeing specific sports programs.
Catalano was in charge when football running back Maurice Clarett violated NCAA bylaws and during the allegations of wrongdoing by former men’s basketball coach Jim O’Brien, who was fired in 2004, and former assistant Paul Biancardi.
Catalano’s replacement has not been named.
The biggest change in the department’s realignment is in Hof’s area, which puts the divisions of marketing, development, ticketing and communications under his leadership.
Smith said the new structure will allow employees to have their work judged on quantifiable goals, which will be evaluated annually, rather than every few years.
"We want to improve professional development and help our people grow," the athletics director said. "The reality is, it forces communication."
Smith’s predecessor, Andy Geiger, also looked at the department as a business, but he was a builder. During Geiger’s 11-year tenure, OSU spent millions of dollars to build and renovate sports facilities. During that time, he led the push to:
• Renovate Ohio Stadium for more than $200 million.
• Build the Jerome Schottenstein Center for $115 million.
• Build Bill Davis Stadium and Jesse Owens Memorial Stadium and several other sites for more than $15 million.
The department also paid for some athletic facilities in OSU’s new recreation center and underwrote the cost of renovations on the Scarlet Golf Course and other projects, all for a combined $35 million.
As a result, Ohio State may have among the nation’s best university athletic facilities.
But with big projects come big bills, and OSU’s athletics debt stands at nearly $209 million.
The debt, to be paid off by 2031, means Smith’s department must continually watch its costs.
[email protected]
:osu:
