Merging the athletic department with intramurals has benefitted both the programs and students.
By ANTONYA ENGLISH, Times Staff Writer
Published July 7, 2005
When Vanderbilt University Chancellor Gordon Gee announced plans to abolish the position of athletic director and merge the athletic department with recreation and intramurals, the Commodores became the talk of intercollegiate athletics.
A Division I school in a major conference without an athletic department or a CEO? The jokes and criticism came fast and furious.
"It was somewhat of a tongue-in-cheek situation," said Brian Reese, former director of football operations, now director of sports operations. "It seemed like everything was going fine at Vanderbilt, and now you're being merged with student life and you are a big intramural program. You heard things like, "Is football practice going to be held up because the intramural team wants to have a flag football game on the field?' "
Critics believed Vanderbilt was destroying its athletic department. And even if it worked at Vandy, they believed it wouldn't at a more sports-oriented school.
But two months shy of the two-year anniversary of its integration Commodores officials think they could be on the cutting edge of college athletics in the 21st century. Those directly involved in the school's athletic and student life programs said it has progressed even better than envisioned.
Participation by student athletes in non-athletic areas of campus life are at an all-time high, from student government to alternative spring break - a program where students give up spring break to travel to other countries for community service.
"I think you'll see on our campus now much more involvement with our student athletes in the other side of of the campus," said David Williams II, vice chancellor and general counsel, the man who most resembles an athletic director on campus. "It has changed what we do and how we do it."
Understanding the change
When Gee announced the decision, he called it "a return to the first principles of why we started playing games at universities in the first place - for a confluence of mind and body and spirit."
Most still misunderstood the concept.
"There was a lot of confusion," said Reese, who has been with the school four years. "It was such a drastic thing it caught everyone off guard. And I don't know if we explained the message clearly enough. ... We don't want to be at one end of campus with our student athletes missing out on the entire other parts of the campus life.'
Even some within the athletic department weren't sure the idea would work.
"I was concerned," Commodores football coach Bobby Johnson said. "Todd Turner (former athletic director) hired me and I thought a lot of him. He'd become a good friend in a short period of time. I felt like I was in a comfort zone while he was calling the shots in the athletic department. And then he leaves and you just don't know what is going to go on."
So the first year consisted of instituting the changes while fighting the negative publicity.
While there is no official athletic director, Williams is the man in charge.
By integrating the department, administrators have been given much more responsibility, but with a variety of interests.
On Aug. 20, Reese will coordinate freshman move-in day for the entire 600-member freshman class - another aspect of the integration of administrative duties between athletics and student life.
"What we've done is taken more people and put them at different levels of responsibility, but they also have responsibility outside of athletics," Williams said. "And we've got more people involved, administrators from across campus."
Williams meets with athletic department administrators twice weekly, so there is plenty of opportunity to have discussion and make decisions.
For most, the change is minimal in day-to-day operations.
"Quite frankly, I don't notice much difference at all," men's basketball coach Kevin Stallings said. "Everything is still in the same place. We work more directly with higher levels of administration within the university, but I think I notice very little difference honestly."
The major difference, the coaches and administrators said, is the interaction and decision-making based on a university-wide process, not just with athletics in mind.
"For the first time, Vanderbilt athletics has a great voice at the big table," Reese said. "The way our administration works, there is the Chancellor and four vice chancellors. For the first time we are being proactive instead of reactive. We have a seat at the big table. If the provost has a proposal ... regarding academics, before they would pass the proposal and then we would have to react. Now, they hear our opinion and how it could positively or negatively affect student athletics. The decisions aren't athletic-driven, but our voice is now heard and considered before a decision is made."
The primary goal of Vanderbilt's integration was to put the "student" back in athletics and to prevent athletes from being involved only in athletics.
One of the first programs the newly-formed administration viewed was the school's honor council, the student-driven disciplinary agency. Two years ago, no student-athlete had ever been on the honor council. When Williams tried to find out why, he was told "athletes don't have time for honor council."
It turned out there was a year-long requirement rule to be a member, which made it nearly impossible for athletes to serve during their sports season. Athletic administrators proposed a couple seats be deemed semester-only and a couple positions that could be shared, allowing athletes the flexibility to participate.
"It was simple things like that," Williams said.
Programs that were once separate are now also integrated, with heavy athletic participation. Williams said two years ago if a speaker was brought to campus to address an issue such as gambling, athletics would have brought the speaker to campus in September and the campus organization might have sponsored the same speaker in February.
"This year, we brought him in universitywide and had a lot of people come in," Williams said.
It's all a product of each side being involved in what the other is doing, he said. And insisting that the athletes do the same.
"I always say to the student athletes, you've got to demand to be seen as more than an athlete," Williams said. "You've got to demand it because you are more than an athlete. And we need to give you that opportunity."
Less bureaucracy, more money
Only a small percentage of athletic departments turn a profit. With 6,272 undergraduate students, Vanderbilt is the smallest school in the football-driven SEC, and its football program isn't a big money making venture like many of the other conference schools. So Vandy's athletic program is what Williams calls "subsidized" by other funds.
By merging, Vandy's varsity sports programs actually gained from a financial standpoint.
Baseball is a prime example. Vanderbilt is adding 420 seats to its baseball stadium, part of a partnership with student affairs.
"They basically said we've got money and we'll put up the money for this, with an understanding that we will be repaid that money off the revenue that comes from selling just those seats," Williams said. "And once we get our money back, then you keep the rest. Without that, we never would have been able to put those 420 seats in."
Williams said several administrators from other areas of campus have offered to subsidize summer school for the athletics program, and while the funds weren't needed, it's an offer that wouldn't have been made in the past.
Vanderbilt only?
While Vanderbilt boasts of success in this venture two years later, the big question remains: Can it be done anywhere else, especially at large football/booster driven programs?
Reese said he believes any program can use the integration model, but for larger schools it could be tricky.
"I think it can (work), but the key thing is having a set plan at those big schools to do this," he said. "Here we had to educate people, but at those schools you'd have to educate a lot more - administrators, boosters, support staff. I think they would have to do it gradually, where we were more aggressive."
Williams helped oversee the nation's largest intercollegiate athletic program for 14 years as vice president for student life and community affairs at Ohio State. He strongly believes every school can make the program work.
"Ours was born out of part necessity and part creativity, but it can work anywhere," he said. "I think putting aside the outside influences that may factor in if you are heavily making a lot of money from football, putting that aside, I would love to have the opportunity to do what we're trying to do with revenue like we had when I was at Ohio State."
But even at Vanderbilt, the bottom line also involves performance on the field.
"I'd be remiss if I didn't say I'd like for us to win," Williams said. "Vanderbilt has never had a national championship, and we'd like to do that. But more importantly, we want to feel very good about the fact that we are actually fully developing these kids in the way we think we should be doing. That's not to criticize anybody else, it's just that we've taken the position that this is how we think it should be done.
"Ultimately, all we're saying is, you need to be an all-around kid."
