Team effort
Anyone who’s been to an Ohio State function with Gene Smith knows his wife, Sheila, too. They’re a package deal.
Gene and Sheila met, of all places, at a convention for the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics.
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| Photo courtesy of Sheila Smith |
They later married when Gene was athletic director at Iowa State and Sheila worked in development at UNLV.
To this day, Gene says the best sales job he ever pulled off was convincing Sheila to move from Las Vegas to Ames, Iowa.
Smith had been an AD previously at Eastern Michigan, so “I was very comfortable working with coaches and athletes, but my wife understood giving speeches, working with donors, understanding the constituency, hosting events in our home. So much of what we do now was implemented and learned at Iowa State. I was fortunate to have her with me there.”
Now at Ohio State, the Smiths jointly teach an MBA elective class in the Fisher College of Business on the business of college sports.
“The goal is that they’ll no longer look through the lens of a fan sitting in the student section,” Sheila said. “By the end of the class, they’ll see athletics through the lens of the person in the AD chair.”
Cover to cover
Gene Smith’s book club is no joke. It’s actually competitive.
Smith’s closest friend, Alex Shumate, took it up a notch recently when he selected “Showdown: Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court Nomination That Changed America” for the group to read. Makes sense, given Shumate’s position as managing partner at Squire Patton Boggs in Columbus.
What no one expected at the next book club gathering, however, was that the book’s author, Wil Haygood, would make a surprise appearance, at Shumate’s request.
Gene Smith’s favorite reading:
■ “Leadership is an Art” by Max De Pree (1987)
Smith: “There is a chapter in the book devoted to the strength that lies in diversity and the notion of liberating people’s talents and skills. It’s stellar.”
■ “As A Man Thinketh” by James Allen (1903)
Smith: “James Allen is powerful. Its essence is: A person thinks, so is he or she.”
■ “Learning to Lead” by Warren Bennis (1994)
Smith: “I like any book by Warren Bennis on leadership. He’s the guru.”
Building relationships
Gene Smith’s friends and peers laud him for his ability to build relationships. That’s evident by how much difficulty he’s had leaving one job for another. Even though he’s been an AD at four different schools, he’s spent at least five years at every stop.
You’d think that taking the Ohio State job, one of the elite positions in college athletics, would have been a no-brainer, but his wife, Sheila, said that wasn’t the case in 2005.
“When Ohio State called, we weren’t chomping at the bit to move,” she said. “We had a home on a golf course, we had a vacation home in the Pacific Northwest on a lake. And Gene loved the president [Michael Crow]. We were set. Gene had to really think about it.”
Five years earlier, the move from Iowa State to ASU was equally tough. In fact, Smith withdrew from consideration at one point to stay in Ames.
“That’s just how Gene is,” Sheila said. “He believes that if you put people first, the business will follow. For him, the job is all-consuming. Practically everything we do is connected to Gene’s work.”
Multi-sport focus
The $32 million Schumaker Complex for Olympic sport athletes will be built right next to the Buckeyes’ football training building.
There are functional reasons for this, AD Gene Smith said. He wants strength coaches, trainers and nutritionists for all sports collaborating in ways they couldn’t previously because their facilities were more spread out. “We were too decentralized before,” he said.
But there’s also a symbolism to having an Olympic training center sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with the main football building. While Smith is a former football player who oversees a massive football program, he has 36 sports to run.
“It’s personal,” Smith said of his intent to take care of the athletes who don’t produce revenue just as well as the ones who do. “I was blessed to get a college education because of football. Our Olympic sport athletes are the same way. They’re just as talented in their sport.
“The last I checked, we’ve got eight athletes going to Rio. These athletes have a chance to go compete for a gold medal. I mean, the NFL draft is great and I’m happy for the 12 guys who got drafted and have a chance to go pro.
But think about going to Rio and coming back with a gold medal. Wow. Wow.”
What they’re saying
“Gene clearly is the prototypical AD for the 21st century. He’s got the perfect balance of leadership, management skills, administrative skills and people skills. He now serves on the president’s cabinet, so he’s not just a trusted adviser in athletics, but also an adviser as it relates to students and the university environment as a whole.”
— Alex Shumate, chairman of Ohio State’s board of trustees
“Look, Gene wants to beat me and I want to beat him competitively in everything we do. But our friendship is not going to change or be hindered because of the institutions we’re at. … The connection with Gene, both personally and professionally, will probably grow stronger because of our ties within the Big Ten.”
— Warde Manuel, AD at rival Michigan
“Even though it’s a big university, Gene makes everybody feel close. It’s like you’re part of a much smaller school.”
— Sam Covelli, Ohio State donor
“He has a presence about him, you know, an air of wisdom and confidence and experience. He’s just very well-grounded in his profession and his vision.”
— Michael Drake, Ohio State president
“Gene was one of the few guys who said he had an open-door policy and actually kept the door open. I could go to him with a request or we could talk about Notre Dame football. You could tell back then that he had a good way with people.”
— Bob Parks, track coach at Eastern Michigan when Smith was the school’s AD
“Gene is a gamer. If we’re playing golf and the game is on the line, Gene is going to make the putt. You can bet on it. He’s clutch. He might lose a couple of drives right during the course of the round, but when the money’s on the line, he will make the putt.”
— Algenon Marbley, U.S. District Court judge and Smith friend
