Sans Department & Director

The below article from the Huntsville Times is as good an article as you'll ever read on the controversial athletic system in place at Vanderbilt.


Commodores succeed without a traditional athletic department
Monday, June 11, 2007
Huntsville Times

The clannish, insular world of big-time intercollegiate sports gasped when Vanderbilt chancellor Gordon Gee decided to disband the traditional structure of the university's athletic department nearly four years ago.

First, they gasped. Then chuckled. Then guffawed.

Many onlookers, including a sizable percentage of Vandy alumni and supporters, thought it was the craziest idea they'd ever heard. Gee was called everything from an out-of-touch egghead to an outright nitwit. In the view of the critics, his vainglorious and impractical notions were as quaint and outlandish as his collection of bow ties.

"Vanderbilt has a hard enough time winning as it is,'' bemused commentators hastened to point out. "Now they're eliminating the athletic department? And the AD job? So much for Vandy athletics.''

Gee was stubbornly undeterred. He insisted that "nothing short of a revolution'' will stop a growing crisis of faltering conscience and slipshod integrity within the framework of college athletics. He said a pervasive culture of win-at-all-costs has increasingly undermined the fundamental mission of higher education across the country, creating a malignant climate "where responsibility is diffuse, the potential for abuse considerable, and the costs - both financial and academic - unsustainable.''

His decision to perform "radical surgery'' on the Vanderbilt athletic department in no way lessened the school's commitment to varsity athletics, declared Gee, but he pointedly added: "We intend on competing consistently according to the values of a world-class university.''

Not surprisingly, the scoffers were loud and numerous.

"People were laughing at us,'' Gee said in an interview during the recent Southeastern Conference Spring Meeting in Destin, Fla. "People were writing my obituary. People were writing Vanderbilt athletics' obituary.

"Well, guess what? We're both still alive and well.''

As part of his long-range plan to reorganize Vanderbilt athletics, Gee recruited an old friend and ally from Ohio State, David Williams II, and installed him as Vanderbilt's vice chancellor of student life and university affairs in 2000.

For more than two years, Gee and Williams, a nationally respected educator with salt-and-pepper hair and mustache and boundless energy, quietly planned their makeover of the athletic department.

Andy Geiger, the athletic director at Ohio State, had reported to Williams during the time Gee was OSU's president. When Gee came to Vanderbilt from Brown University, Williams was one of his first hires.

"We both knew we wanted to do something with athletics,'' Gee said, "but I didn't have anything specific in mind. All we knew was, it would be something dramatic and something meaningful and something that would work.''

Williams, said Gee, "is the architect of the whole thing - the one who put it together and the one who's making it work. But our philosophies about the program are one and the same.''

Essentially, what Williams did was integrate the athletic department into the university as a whole, combining varsity sports with intramurals, student recreation and community sports programs under the umbrella of a new Office of Student Athletics, Recreation and Wellness. Various athletic responsibilities were divided among four other vice chancellors.

The athletic director, Todd Turner, eventually moved on to the AD job at the University of Washington, but most of Vanderbilt's varsity coaches decided to stay. In addition to their usual duties, every coach is required to become actively involved in some other aspect of campus life. Admissions, for example. Or facilities. Or student government.

In much the same way, athletes on scholarship at Vanderbilt are expected to participate regularly in activities outside their varsity sport. Like the student council. Or honor council. Or dorm council.

"I tell our student-athletes that when you go out on campus, you need to make sure people see you as more than an athlete,'' said Williams.

By the same token, the coaches are asked to be seen on campus as something more than a coach. According to Williams, all the coaches have enthusiastically embraced the concept, including the head coaches in football (Bobby Johnson), basketball (Kevin Stallings) and baseball (Tim Corbin).

What it has done, said Williams, is establish a stronger, more positive relationship with the rest of the campus.

"That's important anyway,'' he said, " but in our case, it's very important. Because in our case, there's absolutely no way, under our configuration, that athletics at Vanderbilt will ever produce enough money to be self-sufficient.''

Even if Vanderbilt's football team was the best in the country, Williams said, the school would have to charge three times the price everybody else charges to make money because the stadium seats only 39,000, less than half the capacity at of such SEC rivals as Tennessee, LSU, Alabama, Georgia, Auburn and Florida.

"We're a private institution with about 6,400 students,'' Williams noted, "and we're very cognizant of the fact that we're subsidized by the university, and on any given day I can walk across the campus and have a hundred different people tell me how they can better use that money.''

That reality makes it all the more important, he said, that others on campus know and understand what Vanderbilt athletics is about: credibility and integrity, financial conservatism, and running a clean program.

And something else, too - the most important thing.

"They need to know that we view the central mission of the university to be academics,'' Williams said. "Above athletics comes academics. Always. So when there's that call between the two, it's not going to be them against us. It's going to be us, together.''

For Williams, a former athlete and coach who later oversaw the country's largest athletics program when he was at Ohio State, it has always been a matter of focusing on the right priorities. Frankly, it's easier to underscore that focus at a place like Vanderbilt.

"Gordon and I first started formulating these ideas when we were both at Ohio State,'' Williams said. "We saw the opportunity put them into practice at Vanderbilt because the school is smaller and athletics at Vanderbilt, while very, very important, certainly did not have the same status that it did at Ohio State."

All about integrity

Has it worked?

Will Gordon Gee have the last laugh?

"We already have,'' Gee said. "We've had seven teams ranked nationally over the last few months, and that's pretty damn good.''

It's a point well taken. Football, the kingpin sport, is still trying to turn the corner under Johnson, but most of Vanderbilt's other teams are not only thriving, but excelling.

The baseball team was ranked No. 1 in the nation for most of the season, and star pitcher David Price was chosen by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays as the No. 1 pick of the major league draft. The men's basketball team advanced to the Sweet 16. The women's basketball team won the SEC Tournament. Sophomore Jon Curran finished eighth in the NCAA men's golf championship.

In April, the women's bowling team, coached by former Ole Miss football player John Williamson, won Vanderbilt's first national championship in any sport.

Do Gee and Williams feel vindicated after all these giddy headlines?

Absolutely.

"A lot of people thought Gordon had lost his brain," Williams said, "so I'm sure he takes a certain amount of pleasure in what's happening."

Williams admits he does, too.

"When we first did this,'' he said, "I was always having to tell people, 'No, we're not de-emphasizing athletics. No, we're not leaving Division I-A. No, we're not leaving or getting kicked out of the SEC. No, Vanderbilt athletics isn't going to be all about intramurals."

Yet Williams fully understands why the decision was so widely ridiculed and why many thought the Vanderbilt administration had gone off the deep end.

"What happened was, people didn't take the time to understand it,'' he said. "Things were being written and said that just weren't true. They were saying, 'Vandy's going to intramurals.' That wasn't true. 'They won't have an athletic department.' That wasn't true. 'The coaches will leave.' They didn't. 'Kids won't come to school there.' They still come.

"So, yes, I guess there's a certain satisfaction in knowing we were right and they were wrong. Some have even called to say they were wrong. I appreciated that.''

Part of the satisfaction, Williams said, comes from the knowledge that Vanderbilt has done it the right way.

"It's easy to have integrity when you lose,'' said Williams. "But when you win, it's a lot harder.''

He mentioned that one of the key baseball players "had a little hiccup'' just before the SEC baseball tournament. Corbin benched him.

On another occasion, men's tennis coach Ian Duvenhage called Williams one day and said: "I've got a problem. One of our kids broke team rules and I'd like to sit him down for a match. But I need to explain to you two things. We've only got the minimum number of players. If I sit him down, we'll have to automatically forfeit a doubles and a singles. So it'll be very hard to win.''

"OK,'' said Williams.

"The other thing is, we're playing Tennessee,'' Duvenhage said.

"I told him, 'Sit him down,' " said Williams. "So he did, and he takes those kids up to Knoxville and we win 4 to 3.

"That's integrity. I've had kids come to me and say, 'Thank you for hiring our men's tennis coach. He has taught me more about life than I could ever learn about tennis.' Winning is bigger than what the score is at the end of the game. But when you win that bigger thing, you've also got a good chance to win the other.''

What about football?

All the early negativity has made the recent successes in the various arenas of competition that much sweeter for the students and faculty at Vanderbllt's picturesque Nashville campus.

For Commodore fans, it's refreshing to have something to brag about other than the typical Vandy student's grade point average.

"I can't tell you how much winning the national championship in bowling meant to us,'' Williams said. "Not only was it our first, but it re-energized the entire athletic staff. For a long time, we all sat around trying to figure out who'd be the first coach to win a national championship. Would it be Tim? Would it be (women's basketball coach) Melanie Balcomb? Would it be (women's tennis coach) Geoff MacDonald? Would it be Martha (Freitag) in women's golf?

"Everybody was happy for John Williamson to be the one. Now the question is, who's next?''

When Balcomb's team won the SEC Tournament, the first two text messages she received came from Tim Corbin and the women's soccer coach, Ronnie Coveleskie.

When the bowling team returned from winning the national championship in Apopka, Fla., Bobby Johnson was among the revelers who greeted the bus. Kevin Stallings, the basketball coach, has been known to provide color commentary on Vandy's baseball radio network.

"After she won the SEC championship,'' Williams said, "I was talking to Melanie and she said, 'You know, I don't know if I'd feel that kind of support at a big athletic school. I don't know if I would've gotten an e-mail from the baseball coach and the soccer coach.' ''

Gee, Williams and Commodores everywhere understand, of course, that winning in basketball, baseball, tennis, swimming, golf, track and field, lacrosse and bowling is nice. But ultimately and most of all, Vanderbilt needs to start winning in football, too.

Football has always been the steepest hill to climb. Vanderbilt hasn't had a winning football season since 1983. Only one Vandy coach (Steve Sloan in 1973-74) has managed an overall winning record in the last 55 years.

Johnson, who compiled a fine record at Furman, has enjoyed a few shining moments, including an upset victory at Georgia last season and a stunning win over Tennessee the year before. But the bottom line is, Johnson is 2-10, 2-10, 2-9, 5-6 and 4-8 in his five years at Vanderbilt.

"I do think we're getting close,'' Johnson says, and that may be. Last year, the Commodores lost by a field goal to Alabama (13-10), a touchdown to Ole Miss (17-10) and a touchdown to eventual national champion Florida (25-19).

Despite the record, Johnson - who was given a long-term contract extension after his third season - has the full support of both Gee and Williams.

"We have the absolute right coach for who we are,'' Williams said. "We understand it's a building process. I never like to predict things, but I think Bobby has been right on schedule as far as developing his program.

"Our program is going to continue to improve. I like going to bowl games, and I haven't been to a bowl game since leaving Ohio State. I'm about ready.''

Making progress

Williams and Gee are familiar with the old put-down about Vanderbilt athletes ("Vandy will always be Vandy.")

In the academic sense, they hope the slogan lives forever. In the athletic sense, they hope and believe it's beginning to go away.

"People who've recruited against Vanderbilt,'' said Williams, "have always told recruits, 'Why do you want to go there? It's too hard?'

"We tell our coaches, 'Sell 'em on who we are, not who we're not.' Football's hard. Basketball's hard. Life is hard. We're going to prepare you for that. We tell parents, 'If your kid's looking to do one year of college and then go to the pros, we're all wasting our time. But if you want to compete in the toughest conference, at the top level, and get an outstanding education, then you need to look at us.'

"I always tell people I'm very happy Matt Frieje got a chance to go play for the Miami Heat,'' Williams said. "I love the fact that Jay Cutler is going to be the starting quarterback for the Denver Broncos. I'm anxiously awaiting to see where Derrick Byars is going to be playing in the NBA. David Price will be a star in the big leagues some day.''

But his proudest moment, said Williams, will be this time next year when he goes to the law school graduation and watches former Vandy basketball player Russell Lakey, whose career was cut short by injuries, receive his degree.

"I'm thankful he came here, but Jay Cutler would've been an NFL player wherever he went to school,'' Williams said.

"I believe Russell Lakey could've only been a law graduate because he came to Vanderbilt.''

Like Williams, Gee has no illusions that the other schools in the SEC will follow Vanderbilt's lead in its new approach to athletics

"We couldn't have done this at Ohio State,'' Gee said. "I couldn't have done it when I was at Colorado. Or West Virginia.

"I really don't expect our structure to be widely followed. We do hope the philosophy will have some positive influence. A lot of my colleagues are very much kindred spirits in that regard. Unfortunately, many of them have problems similar to what we saw at Colorado and Ohio State.''

Said Williams: "I hope other schools will adopt at least some aspects of what we're doing,. There'll be some reluctance by some people, but you already see some others who're picking up some things. I had a discussion (in Destin) with the ADs about some of the philosophies we've put into place as relates to summer school and things like that.

"They don't talk much in large groups,'' Williams said. "But they'll talk to me one-on-one. I imagine Gordon gets the same thing.

"To me, that's progress.''


Contact John Pruett at john.pruett@htimes.com or visit his al.com blog at http//blog.al.com/pruett



© 2007 The Huntsville Times
© 2007 al.com All Rights Reserved.