Gene Smith reflects on Ohio State tenure with Tim May after retirement announcement
COLUMBUS — Gene Smith will retire as Ohio State athletic director on June 30, 2024 in his 19th year at the post.
That was the bulletin on Wednesday. But as he and I spoke on a special edition of The Tim May Show a few hours later, the brass facts of course don’t come anywhere close to summarizing one of the great runs ever by an athletic director at any school.
Well, except for that “19th year” part. For when I asked him near the end of our talk what he takes most pride in from his reign – and again, today isn’t the end, but he can see it from here – he had a great answer.
“I’m very proud that we focused on the total student-athlete; I mean, that’s critical,” Smith said. “And I’m proud that I made it.”
Remember, hired in 2005 away from Arizona State to replace Andy Geiger, Smith became the first African-American athletic director in Ohio State history. Just the eight athletic director ever at the school, he is the third-longest tenured behind L.W. St. John (1912-1947) and Richard Larkins (1947-1970). And he’ll be the first since Larkins to leave entirely on his own terms.
The Cleveland native and former defensive end and 1977 graduate of Notre Dame, Smith started his trailblazing career as an A.D. at Eastern Michigan in 1986, moving on to Iowa State in 1993 and Arizona State in 2000. More to the point, there was a little history of African-American A.D.’s in the major college ranks in 1986, and even less history of any succeeding, much less thriving and achieving.
Smith broke that mold. He has overseen, to date, 32 team national championships at Ohio State that include in part 117 individual national titles. He maintained 36 varsity sports, the most for any major college athletic department, and a feat that was challenged fiscally like never before during the Covid year of 2020 and its aftermath.
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All the while he focused on diversifying and uplifiting those around him in the administrative ranks, with current fellow major college athletic directors Pat Chun, an Asian-American, at Washington State, Martin Jarmond, an African-American at UCLA, Heather Lyke at Pittsburgh and Diana Sabau at Utah State being prime examples.
He also made it a priority to his coaches to raise the level not just of athlete, but of person they recruited as Ohio State went about raising the bar overall for prospective student. Then he went about seeing to it the stimulus provided to student-athletes was above the norm, be it in facilities, academic aids, training aids, nutrition, mental health – the works.
Smith also had to administer some tough love, like with Ohio State football coaches Jim Tressel and Urban Meyer, and with basketball coach Thad Matta. He speaks of those moments, especially with Tressel, during this interview.
Anyone who endures no doubt faces challenges along the way. Smith endured. He also rose to become a leader in his field, and in the last several years a steering mechanism for the Big Ten and the national scene. That became more and more clear to him Wednesday as he pondered the magnitude of his announcement.
“As an African-American back in the day, you didn’t think you’d make it,” Smith said. “You just had to overcome that. And I guess I’m kind of proud that I had that opportunity to make it, and be in the seat as an African-American, first black athletic director at Ohio State.”
