Asked what he was most proud of in the last year, Ohio State AD Gene Smith raved about the academic accomplishments of his student-athletes without any mention of the whopping 15-year, $252M apparel deal with Nike that raised the bar for all of college athletics. “Oh, yeah, that was cool,” he said after being reminded of the landmark agreement. This year’s Sports Business Award judges certainly thought so, as they honored Smith with the AD of the Year award in a particularly strong field that also included Oklahoma’s Joe Castiglione, Navy’s Chet Gladchuk and Stanford’s Bernard Muir. Upon further reflection, Smith said the apparel pact ranks at the top of his list of accomplishments, but not just because of the record figure. Instead, he was most excited about the scholarships and internships that Nike will provide non-athletes. “We broke some ground as far as setting a model for other universities to think about how they do apparel deals,” he said, “where they include student life or they include intramurals, how they include club sports and think beyond the athletic department, and what we can derive from an apparel deal. Think about how you can help the entire institution.” Still to come, Smith and his department are pushing toward the completion of a $90M fundraising effort for the construction of both an Olympic sports arena and a student-athlete development center in ’17 (Alex Silverman, Staff Writer).
CONSISTENT EXCELLENCE: In Cleveland, Ari Wasserman noted this is the second time Smith has won AD of the Year ('10) and the third time being nominated ('08), so he has been "consistently recognized as one of the best in college athletics." While the OSU football team "fell short in its quest to win a second consecutive national title," the school was "ranked No. 2 in the 2016 Directors' Cup standings on April 20." OSU won the national title in men's volleyball and "had 10 teams finish among the Top 10 nationally through the fall and winter seasons" (CLEVELAND.com, 5/18).
