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Gene Smith is in his 11th year as director of athletics at The Ohio State University. He was promoted to vice-president and director of athletics in January of 2014.
He is widely recognized among the leaders of his profession and has been named "one of the most powerful people in collegiate sport." Smith was named the Buckeyes' director of athletics March 5, 2005.
Smith is the eighth person to hold the athletics director position at Ohio State and the first African-American to do so. He previously served as director of athletics at Arizona State, Iowa State and Eastern Michigan universities and is entering his 31st year in the role.
At Ohio State, the 59-year old Smith oversees the nation's most comprehensive and one of its most successful collegiate athletics programs. The department sponsors 36 fully-funded varsity sports with more than 1,000 student-athletes regularly competing for Big Ten Conference and NCAA championships.
Smith has additional oversight responsibility for a recently created Business Advancement Division of Ohio State which includes: Schottenstein Center, Nationwide Arena, Blackwell Hotel, Drake Union, Fawcett Center, and Trademark & Licensing. Smith's business acumen has fostered collaboration and optimized revenue opportunities within each entity to ensure profitability.
The athletics department is completely self-supporting; it receives no university funds, tax dollars or student fees. In fiscal year 2014-15, the department transferred nearly $37.5 million in assessments to the university, including more than $17.4 million in grant-in-aid reimbursement. Smith is known for outstanding fiscal controls.
As a highly-recruited student-athlete and member of national championship teams as a college athlete and coach, Smith is passionate about the well-being of student-athletes and the championship experience.
Under Smith's leadership, the Ohio State athletics department has thrived, winning myriad conference and national, individual and team, athletic championships and awards. In 2014-15, Ohio State won five team national championships. Football won the Big Ten Conference championship game; the Sugar Bowl; and the inaugural College Football Playoff Championship. Wrestling, pistol, synchronized swimming and rowing won national championships.
In 2014-15, Logan Stieber claimed his fourth-consecutive NCAA championship, while freshman teammate Mike Tomasello also won a national title. Irina Andrianova finished first in women’s sport pistol, and Glenn Zimmerman finished first in three-gun aggregate. Kelsey Mitchell and D’Angelo Russell each received national honors in basketball.
Concurrent to athletics excellence has been the remarkable academic achievement by student-athletes during Smith's tenure. When Smith arrived, the overall student-athlete FED graduation rate was 65 percent. It is now 75 percent, with over 50 percent of student-athletes maintaining a 3.0 grade point average or better. Ohio State football student-athletes graduated at a 49 percent rate the year Smith began his career in Columbus (2005-06). Last year (2014-15), the football student-athlete FED graduation rate improved to 64 percent. Smith's focus on academics - higher individual and team goals, additional academic support services, and recognition of excellence - has shifted the department's culture to reflect his philosophical focus on the total student-athlete.
In terms of the NCAA Graduation Success Rate improvement, all Ohio State student-athletes had a GSR of 80 percent in 2005-2006. That has increased to 89 percent for 2014-15. Over that same time frame, the GSR for football improved from 55 to 81 percent.
Currently, Smith serves on the newly constituted NCAA Men’s Basketball Oversight Committee (2015-18). Smith is past president of the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA) and was that organization's first African-American president. He also has served on the NCAA Management Council, the NCAA Committee on Infractions, the NCAA Executive Committee, the NCAA Football Rules Committee, the President's Commission Liaison Committee, the NCAA Baseball Academic Enhancement Task Force and the National Football Foundation Honors Court, among others.
In June of 2015 Smith was added to the Concussion Assessment, Research and Education (CARE) Consortium as a member of the CARE Consortium Scientific Advisory Board (SAB). The board will help provide input into the understanding of concussion-related issues.
Smith grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, and attended the University of Notre Dame on a football scholarship. He played four years of football as a defensive end for the Irish and was a member of the 1973 Associated Press national championship team.
Smith received his bachelor's degree in business administration from Notre Dame in 1977. Following graduation, he joined the Notre Dame coaching staff under Dan Devine and remained in that capacity until 1981. The 1977 Notre Dame team captured the undisputed national championship. Smith has won national championships as a student-athlete, a coach, and an athletic director, one of the few people in American sport history to do so.
Gene and Sheila have four children: Matt, Nicole, Lindsey and Summer, and five grandchildren: Marshall, Steele, Addison, Grayson and Tyson.