For each of his six years heading the sports business graduate program at the University of South Florida — and, really, for most of his 40 years straddling academia and industry — Bill Sutton has known precisely which box he wanted to check next.
Whether it was as a professor at Robert Morris University or Ohio State or UMass, as vice president of team business operations at the NBA, as associate director of the sports business program at the University of Central Florida or as the originating architect and director of the program at USF, Sutton always had a next step to take, a next goal to meet.
Bill Sutton
Earlier this year, he surveyed the status of the USF program, created in partnership with the NHL’s Tampa Bay Lightning and grown with the help of other area sports and entertainment employers, and realized there was no longer a next step — at least not for him.
“I got to the point where I had everything done on the list,” said Sutton, who was expected to announce on Oct. 19 that he would retire as program head at the end of the academic year. “So it’s time for new leadership. Time for someone else to come in and create their own list.”
Sutton will be succeeded by Michelle Harrolle, an assistant professor who since 2013 has coordinated the program’s sports residency component, which places second-year students in 20-hour-a-week jobs at area sports and entertainment properties.
Long a proponent of practice-based sports business education, Sutton finally found the ideal mix between traditional MBA training and professional application at USF, where Lightning owner Jeff Vinik agreed to fund the startup program and provided the first paid residencies for 10 students. Those students would not only gain experience but also qualify for tuition waivers that would dramatically reduce the cost of their education. Sutton and Harrolle went to work finding employers in the region who together would provide another 20 residency positions, creating a dynamic unlike any in the country.
It was the culmination of a career in which Sutton made the mix of business training and practical application his calling card. He worked as a consultant while at each of his academic posts, building industry relationships and connecting students to real-world case studies and projects.
When he returned to academia after a four-year stint with the NBA’s team business consulting division, Sutton brought an even greater appreciation for the most fertile job tracks and the acumen that those roles required.
“I was able to see the kind of people getting jobs and the types of jobs,” said Sutton, a longtime contributor to Sports Business Journal (see this week’s column). “When I went to UCF, I brought that with me. Then, coming here, it all blossomed. I was able to take things all the way. I had the buy-in of the administration as well as the Lightning, who gave us credibility in the industry and the community. It became the true ‘town and gown’ program that I always hoped it would be.”
