Gene Smith (AD The Ohio State, '10 AD of the Year, '13 NAAC Organizational Leadership Award)

[BayBuck]

The emphasis (thank Mr. Gee - the first time) is on academics (as it should be). Tress & Co have recruited quality students (and people) who happen to be athletes (pretty darn good ones at that), rather than the marginal students who played good football (for a previous FB coach). Thank the Notre Dame training for that? Thank Vanderbilt for being Gee's incubator/test case? Some of the above, all of the above probably.

The greater emphasis on academics comes from Tressel, who got here earlier (2001) than Gee returned to OSU (2007), and has consistently improved the character of his incoming players and their academic performance as a whole. And while we are fortunate to have the nation's best university president in Gee and another great man at AD in Gene Smith, don't be so quick to pigeonhole Geiger as a house-cleaner and stadium-builder: after all, he did hire Tressel (as well as Matta and Foster).

 

[Buckrock]

Mr. Smith is not a change agent like Geiger was, but OSU hired Geiger to clean house. And he did, plus put OSU in debt for the next three or four generations for all the beautiful faciltiies, but those were needed as well. OK, now OSU is 'shaken up' and the drink has settled, and in steps Gene Smith. Great position, and a great choice to fill it. Now that things are running smoothly, it takes a special person to build the collaboration between the President/Board and the trenches/coaches. That appears to be working very well. The emphasis (thank Mr. Gee - the first time) is on academics (as it should be). Tress & Co have recruited quality students (and people) who happen to be athletes (pretty darn good ones at that), rather than the marginal students who played good football (for a previous FB coach). Thank the Notre Dame training for that? Thank Vanderbilt for being Gee's incubator/test case? Some of the above, all of the above probably.

Anyway folks, it's been said several times before that these may be the Golden Years of our generation. 'Twas the Best of Times (OSU FB success), and the Worst of Times '(OSU FB punishing losses in BCS). All roller coasters go up and down as they go forward. Just can't get too high, or too low.

Congrats to Gene Smith, keep on doing whatever you're doing......

:gobucks3::gobucks4:

PS, I like to read the names of the starters on the honor rolls, rather than the 4th string long snapper (no offense to long snappers) in the BSB. That is more telling than the W-L records (including the major fields of study). Quality is improving everywhere.

Great post! I've met Gene Smith and he is more in the roll of fund raiser and OSU ambassador. Geiger was more of a builder/architect, no non sense businesman.

 

[DaddyBigBucks]

Great post! I've met Gene Smith and he is more in the roll of fund raiser and OSU ambassador. Geiger was more of a builder/architect, no non sense businesman.

I do not disagree with anything in that post.

But I will add that I met Andy Geiger at a fund raiser in Orange County some years ago. There were people in that room that wrote large checks to The Ohio State University that night. I was not one of those people, and Andy knew it. But you would never know that by the way he treated me. He was as good an ambassador for OSU on the one night that I met him as I could have ever hoped for.

And he made two of the 5 best hires in the history of the athletic department IMO.

 

[sammyjenkis]

I do not disagree with anything in that post.

But I will add that I met Andy Geiger at a fund raiser in Orange County some years ago. There were people in that room that wrote large checks to The Ohio State University that night. I was not one of those people, and Andy knew it. But you would never know that by the way he treated me. He was as good an ambassador for OSU on the one night that I met him as I could have ever hoped for.

And he made two of the 5 best hires in the history of the athletic department IMO.

Cheapskate

 

[jimotis4heisman]

OSU's Smith not interested in NCAA president's job | The Columbus Dispatch

Gene Smith said tonight he will not be a candidate for the NCAA president's job. The Chronicle of Higher Learning had listed the Ohio State University athletics director as a potential successor to Myles Brand, who died of cancer last month. The NCAA has recently begun its search for the next president.
"I have no interest in that job and am not going to the NCAA," Smith said. "I'm happy where I am. I've got a lot of things I need to accomplish here."
Smith is in his fifth year as Ohio State's athletics director. He served for one year as the president of the Division I-A Athletic Directors Association. He is on the Division I men's basketball committee and will be its chairman in 2010-11.
"My guess is the (NCAA) board of directors will go through a process and in all likelihood a current or former president will emerge," Smith said. "Myles Brand did a marvelous job. I'm hoping they'll find someone with his leadership skills and ability to build consensus, because we're going to need it."

 

[Buckskin86]

Gene Smith: Guided by fate to Ohio State
Thursday, November 26, 2009
By Michael Arace
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

SAYING HELLO:Ohio State Athletic Director Gene Smith, right, talks with Northland basketball coach Satch Sullinger during an OSU men's game Tuesday night in Value City Arena. Seated next to Sullinger is his son, Jared, who will attend Ohio State next year. (Jonathan Quilter, Dispatch)

Gene Smith was touched by fortune as soon as he left the womb. He was a Dr. Spock baby.

Granted, from the postwar years through the 1990s, there were millions of Dr. Spock babies in America. They were boomer bundles of joy born to devoted followers of Dr. Benjamin Spock, who wrote Baby and Child Care, one the most influential books of the 20th century. In fact, during Spock's lifetime, his book was second in sales to the Bible.

But Genie wasn't just any Dr. Spock baby. He was touched by the man himself - and things went from there. A half-century later, he landed in the director's chair of the largest and richest athletic department in college sports. When he pinches himself, he feels a hundred fingerprints, and he smiles.

The story starts in Cleveland, where baby Genie's parents met, somehow. His father, a Kentuckian, settled there after a stint in the Navy. His mother, a Floridian, moved there to attend nursing school. By the time baby Genie came along in 1955, Dr. Spock was teaching a revolutionary course in child development at Case Western Reserve. Of course, baby Genie's mom, the nurse, was only too happy to have the renowned pediatrician hold baby Genie up in front of assorted symposiums as an example of "the well baby."

So, when Elizabeth Smith says her son was "a Dr. Spock baby," it is not a generalization. Elizabeth is 83 now, and she still lives in the house in which she raised her two children, Eugene and Novella. Her husband, Ted, 85, is suffering from dementia and lives in a nursing home in nearby Warrensville. Ted no longer recognizes his son, and this is especially difficult for Gene. Father and son were very close. The old man doesn't realize his boy is back in Ohio. Home.

Ted and Elizabeth.

Ted was an electrical contractor, and some of Gene's earliest memories are of worksites, and of pushing a broom among men who were fastidious and worried in equal measure. They were fastidious because their trades - plumbing, bricklaying, construction and so forth - were competitive. They were worried because they didn't know from whence their next job would come. They got up at daylight, returned home at dusk, Monday through Saturday. On weekends, as time allowed, they played poker, fished for walleye and drank Jack Daniel's.

Gene learned. Work hard and enjoy. He intended to graduate John F. Kennedy High, go to a two-year trade school and, at some point, take over the family business. Southeast Cleveland would be his territory. He would wire among his oldest friends.

GameDay+

 

[Buckskin86]

Buckeye business stays afloat
By Sarah Wilcox
[email protected]
Sunday, January 3, 2010

Even without multi-million dollar contracts and corporate sponsorships for players, collegiate athletics is a business ? just ask Gene Smith.

?The challenge you have to keep in mind is we?re not producing a quantifiable manufactured product that people buy, take home and deal with,? said Smith, associate vice president and director of athletics at Ohio State. ?Because we?re an auxiliary, we?re required to be self-supporting. Customer service, pricing, start times, television, all of the contracts we get ? all of that is a part of the business.?

And just like businesses nationwide, the business of college sports
has taken a hit, with many teams cutting back on travel and personnel, and some even eliminating sports programs to stay afloat.

But Smith has crafted a game plan that kept the Buckeyes out of the red and split projected job cuts in two.

?In November of 2008, we had projected a $2.2 million deficit in our budget. So we began a process of reducing everybody?s budget to try and make up that gap,? Smith said.

His strategy helped trim the projected deficit down to $148,000, with 50 job cuts rather than the projected 100.

?We went into business mode, just like every other small business out there,? Smith said.

In addition to directing athletics, Smith?s duties as associate vice president include overseeing the Blackwell, Fawcett Center, Schottenstein Center and the Drake Union. He looks to make the Blackwell profitable in three years and to bring new types of events to the Schottenstein Center.

Construction heroes
Smith has been at OSU for five years, but he started preparing for the job while growing up in Cleveland. Working with his father from his early youth until he was 12, Smith idolized the construction workers at his father?s business.

?Those guys are my heroes,? Smith said. ?What they meant to me was hard work; they didn?t always know what their next job was. I learned work ethic [from them].?

Even though his career goals didn?t always include a college education, Smith attended the University of Notre Dame on a football scholarship and graduated with a degree in business administration.
He worked at Eastern Michigan for 10 years, was the athletic director at Iowa State University for seven years and worked as athletic director at Arizona State University for five years.

His resume also includes a four-year stint coaching under Dan Devine at Notre Dame, as well as a year of work at IBM.

?Gene?s background as a student athlete, coach, tenure in corporate America and administrative experience at [top universities] has allowed Gene to develop a unique skill set making [him] one of the most effective athletics administrators in the country,? said Bob Vecchione, deputy executive director of the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics.

The Lantern - Buckeye business stays afloat

 

[Buckskin86]

Smith against expanding tournament to 96
April, 14, 2010

As the incoming NCAA tournament committee chair, Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith will either preside over another traditional NCAA tournament or be forced to oversee the most dramatic change the event has ever seen.

He says he has no idea if the tournament will expand to 96 teams in 2011. But he knows what he's for -- keeping it the same or making a slight alteration.

But he doesn't have a choice since the decision will likely come down to NCAA interim president Jim Isch, NCAA vice president Greg Shaheen and the presidents' NCAA board of directors. All of this could be decided at the board's meeting on April 29 or when the NCAA has to decide about whether to opt out of the final three years of its CBS television contract (July 31 deadline).

Smith takes over as chair in September. The last meeting of the current selection committee is in June with UCLA athletic director Dan Guerrero finishing his term.

Matthew Emmons/US Presswire
Ohio State AD Gene Smith will take over as the chair of the tourney committee in September.

"I don't have a real perspective of what 96 would look like," Smith said. "I really don't and I think most athletic directors and basketball people would say they would prefer it go to 68."

Andy Katz's Daily Word: Incoming tourney chair Gene Smith not in favor of expanding to 96 - ESPN

 

[Buckrock]

For a Notre Dame guy he's not a bad egg.

 

[BB73]

Congrats to Gene Smith for being named the AD of the Year at Street & Smith's Sports Business Awards in New York City last night.

The other nominees were from Alabama (Mal Moore), Boise St. (Gene Bleymeier), North Carolina (Dick Baddour), and UCLA (Dan Guerrero).

Forbes.blog

The Dallas Cowboys and the NFLcame up big winners at last night's Sports Business Awards hosted by Street & Smith's SportsBusiness Journal and SportsBusiness Daily.

Athletic Director of the Year - Gene Smith, Ohio State University

Cont'd ...

 

[Meyer]

Great honor...

 

[Buckskin86]

Big Ten expansion would be about opportunities, says OSU's Gene Smith
By Doug Lesmerises, The Plain Dealer
June 01, 2010

AN INTERVIEW WITH OSU ATHLETIC DIRECTOR GENE SMITH

Associated Press
Gene Smith: If we . . . take our football program to a new state, it's great exposure for us, for recruiting not just athletes, but students.?

Columbus With 36 sports and a $128 million budget for the next fiscal year, Ohio State has the largest, and one of the healthiest, athletic departments in the country. One of a handful of self-sustaining college athletic departments, Ohio State will turn a slight profit this year, just over $20,000, after losing money a year ago.

At the moment, Athletic Director Gene Smith said the department is in the midst of raising $5 million for an indoor golf practice center and $3.5 million for outdoor tennis courts, along with jumpstarting stalled fundraising for new basketball practice facilities. After that, the school will begin to raise money for a new, smaller arena to replace St. John Arena in the next six to eight years. After an economic downturn, Smith said a second year of reduced expenditures and a tide that is turning more favorable in the economics of college sports has the department back on track.

OTHER NOTES FROM GENE SMITH

Ohio State previously announced ticket price increases of $7 in football and $1 in men's basketball. With the athletic department back making money, athletic director Gene Smith said the increases should raise an additional $8 million for the department, and $5 million or $6 million of that will be used to replenish the athletic department reserves. Smith said those reserves had been depleted by the payment for former men's basketball coach Jim O'Brien's lawsuit, as well as renovations to several facilities. ?We need to have a healthy reserve for anything that could happen,? Smith said, believing the reserve fund should now reach about $8 million.

Ohio State stood in second place after the winter sports season in the standings for the Directors' Cup, given each year to the most successful overall athletic program. Stanford has won the award 15 of 16 years since it was created, and is in first place again. Smith said Ohio State will fall back in the pack after spring sports season, but down the road ?we're going to win that thing before I leave.? With a new hockey coach, and hires coming in baseball and women's lacrosse, there has been some changeover in the athletic department, but Smith believes winning the Cup is a realistic goal. ?We've got a great group of coaches, and they all want to do it the right way,? Smith said. ?I don't have anyone that is trying to scheme the system to win, and that's huge for us. Knock on wood, our behavior issues are significantly down. . . . So we're in a good spot. We're getting better. I'm happy where we are. We're going to win that trophy one day.?

He understands the attachment to St. John Arena, former home to the OSU basketball teams, but the costly upkeep on the arena, and the potential other uses for the land, leads Smith to say of its eventual destruction, ?In my view, it's going to happen.? He envisions a smaller, roughly 3,500-seat arena near the other athletic venues on the other side of Olentangy River Road. ?The idea is to create an athletic village over there,? Smith said. But he expects fundraising, design and construction of the new arena for volleyball, wrestling and a few other sports to take six to eight years, and that must be done before St. John can be torn down.

Big Ten expansion would be about opportunities, says OSU's Gene Smith | cleveland.com

 

[Buckskin86]

68-team field first challenge facing Smith
New chairman wants consensus on play-in games
Sunday, June 20, 2010
By Bill Rabinowitz
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

Gene Smith has had plenty on his mind lately, what with that little thing called Big Ten expansion going on.

But in a week, Smith will take on another task. As the incoming chairman of the Division I men?s basketball committee, he will be in charge of deciding how to incorporate the three new berths in the NCAA?s 68-team tournament.

While his challenge is not as daunting as it would have been if the tournament had expanded to 96 teams, as seemed likely two months ago, it won?t be easy.

The committee has two major decisions to make: Which eight seeds will play in the four opening-round games ? commonly known as play-in games ? that have been created with the new field size? And where will those games be played?

Smith is still awaiting reports from some conferences, so he?s not sure whether a consensus has developed. He said his personal preference, which could change, would be to have the 16th and 17th seeds play each other for the right to face each region?s top seed.

NCAA basketball tournament: 68-team field first challenge facing Smith | BuckeyeXtra

 

[Buckskin86]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTa00IEw-30]YouTube - OSU AD Gene Smith Statement to Buckeye Fans[/ame]

 

[MaliBuckeye]

Great video, I appreciated hearing from him.

Question- if there's such an emphasis on "sensitive" conversations, how come Barry Alvarez keeps running his mouth?

Oh, wait... I think I just answered my own question.