SPORTS NEWS YOU CAN USE

Issue 20 -- Association and Organization Management

Another area of sport management involves working for sports associations and organizations. Three ways these jobs can differ from other sport management jobs:

1. The organizations are often run as non-profits. (This does not mean that big money can't be involved; non-profits often have large operating budgets and raise considerable amounts of money. But they require a level of community outreach to maintain an acceptable public image and this can influence their management.)

2. The organizations are often quite political.Executive directors may be hired by executive boards and therefore need to maintain certain alliances within the organization. According to Mike Moss, who was working as a sport operations manager for the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, "This is not a place for people that are emotionally weak. It takes a pretty strong sense of self to survive in an organization where there are so many people who are strong-willed." (1)

3. The organizations often work with volunteers. Sports national governing bodies, for example, usually have a small paid staff (headed by an executive director working on a contract basis) and a very large volunteer staff (headed by an elected president). Effectively motivating and organizing volunteers requires understanding what they want in return for their help.

According to Jonathan Sangster, who served as training manager for volunteer services at the Atlanta Olympics, "What's going to bring them back to the venue the next day when they've worked 12 hours and it was 90 degrees? It's those relationships that they've established. It's being appreciated for their efforts, being taken care of, and looked out for." (2)

When Dave Prouty, the first executive director of the U.S. Cycling Federation (1983 to 1986), accepted the job, this is what he expected: "The course of action I chose was simple but multi-pronged: go first for the vacuums of power, get control of the finances, distance myself from the old guard in order to develop and maintain credibility with those who wanted to see change, stick with the apple-pie-and-motherhood issues, raise as much money as possible, serve as a mediator between factions but don't become identified with any one or more of them, keep an eye on the long-term goals, support the athletes, don't expend energy trying to solve every problem, and stay on the high road." (3) He resigned in 1986, discouraged by what he perceived to be political game-playing.

Like others in sport management, sport organization managers can come from varied backgrounds including business and law. But most get plugged into sports fairly early in their careers and then move up the management ranks by networking. Examples:

He graduated from Central College in Pella, Iowa, where he majored in phys ed and history and played basketball and baseball. He earned a masters degree in phys ed from the University of Iowa.
 
From 1950 to 1960, he taught biology and served as football, baseball, and basketball coach and athletic director at a high school in Humbolt, Iowa.
 
Schultz also had experience with pro baseball. He signed a contract with the St. Louis Browns in the early 1950s and served as a player-manager of a pro team in Iowa from 1953 to 1956.
 
In 1960 Schultz became the University of Iowa's freshman basketball coach and assistant baseball coach. In 1962 he was named assistant basketball coach and in 1964 became head baseball coach. He served in that position until 1970 when he became the school's head basketball coach.
 
But his goal was to move out of coaching. "I had an overall game plan that was put together before I ever became a head coach. I came to that decision before my third or fourth year (as an assistant coach). Coaching in the Big Ten, I had seen Branch McCracken (at Indiana) die years ahead of his time because of the frustrations. That convinced me that if you stay in coaching long enough the game will pass you by or that you will lose your enthusiasm." (4)
 
From 1974 to 1976 he served as an assistant to the University of Iowa president, handling athletic and external programs. In 1976 Schultz became athletic director of Cornell University. Then from 1981 to 1987 he served as AD at the University of Virginia.
 
In 1987 he became executive director of the NCAA, having been selected from a field of 80 candidates. He had already served as chairman of a special NCAA television negotiating committee (responsible for signing CBS to a large contract to televise the NCAA basketball tournament) and as chairman of the NCAA Marketing Committee.
 
Schultz resigned from the NCAA in 1993 when it was reported that during his tenure at the University of Virginia six athletes had received interest-free loans from a sports booster club, a violation of NCAA rules. Schultz said that he knew nothing about it. Several years later he observed, "If I had to do it all again I wouldn't have left [the NCAA]. My main concern was in hearing infractions cases. I could just see the reaction of the local media: 'How can you penalize them if your executive director wasn't?' I didn't want to be in that position." (5)
 
Still, Schultz had admirers when he left the NCAA. They felt he had cleaned up the organization. According to Kit Morris, executive director of the Knight Commission, an independent group formed to investigate college sports, "The remarkable thing, with as many diverse constituencies in the NCAA, Dick was able to make everyone feel like he was their person." (6)
 
Schultz started Global Sports Enterprises, a consulting and sports marketing company. "We had about 20 clients; half of those were corporations and half were universities. We worked with groups that had products they wanted introduced into the college market.
 
"We worked with some bowls on sponsorships. We negotiated a number of TV contracts. We helped some schools that were interested in reorganizing and realigning their conferences. There was a lot of variety." (7)
 
In 1995 he was hired for the USOC job. He was not new to the organization; he had been on the USOC executive committee from 1990 to 1994. It was the executive committee which selected him for the executive director's job.
 
Schultz said there are similarities between his work at the NCAA and the USOC. "You deal with a large volunteer group, and the volunteers really control the organization. You have to generate a lot of dollars to run the business. There's a large staff to manage." (8)
 
Schultz also said that change within both organizations comes slowly. "The great challenge with the U.S.O.C. will be getting the different groups to trust each other." (9)
 
The USOC job pays Schultz an estimated $350,000 to $400,000 a year (approximately the same amount he had been making when he was still AD at the University of Virginia). It involves running a non-profit with approximately 500 employees and a four-year budget of more than $400 million.

She is also president of the Amateur Athletic Foundation which awards grants to youth sport programs on the West Coast.

DeFrantz grew up in Indianapolis where, as a black girl, she had few opportunities to pursue sports. She attended Connecticut College in the early 1970s, first studying music and then political philosophy. While there she was recruited for the rowing team.

After she graduated in 1974 she attended law school at the University of Pennsylvania. She also landed a spot on the U.S. women's rowing team. She and her teammates won a bronze medal in the 1976 Olympics.

She earned her law degree in 1977 and continued to train for the 1980 Olympics. When President Carter decided America would boycott the games, she was one of the most outspoken critics of the decision. That year she became a member of the executive committee of the USOC.

DeFrantz retired from competition in 1981 and went to work for the organizing committee for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. She was named manager of the athletes' village and oversaw a staff of 4,000 and a budget of $18 million.

In 1985 DeFrantz became chair of the USOC eligibility committee and in 1986 she was elected to the IOC.

Several years later, IOC vice president Dick Pound of Canada said she knew how to fit in. "She has generally done pretty well. She's done the right things in the sense that since being elected she's participated but hasn't jumped into everything with mouth wide open like some people do. She's smart enough to realize not to speak too often and, when she does speak, to have something to say. She's learning how it works and how to be effective in an often difficult international forum, and in time I think she will be one of the best IOC members the United States has ever had."(10)

In 1987 she became president of the AAF, overseeing an endowment of $93 million which was funded from profits generated by the 1984 Olympics.

He grew up in Aspen and attended the University of Colorado in the early 1960s, earning a degree in business. He was a member of the U.S. ski team from 1961 to 1968. During that time he won national titles in downhill, slalom, and giant slalom and went to the 1964 Olympics.

From 1969 to 1978 he was the ski coach for the University of Colorado.

From 1978 to 1984 he was alpine director of the U.S. Ski Team. In 1983 he said, "I think my biggest effort over the past few years, and my biggest satisfaction, really, is building up the system of training camps and the coaching program for the younger kids--the ladder that you have got to have to keep athletes and coaches and information moving. That's the route to the team, and those kids know that." (11)
 
His work paid off. No other U.S. Olympic ski team has done as well the 1984 team, which won three gold medals and two silver.
 
In 1984 Marolt was hired by the University of Colorado to be athletic director, a job he held for twelve years. He presided over some of CU's best sports years, including a national football championship, 14 national ski titles, and a Final Four women's basketball team. During that time Marolt was also a member of the U.S. Ski Team board of trustees.
 
When Marolt took over at U.S. Skiing, it was reported that he likely received an increase in income. He was earning $126,000 in his job at the University of Colorado; his predecessor at U.S. Skiing was earning $150,000 a year.
She became the USCF assistant director in 1989. She was responsible for sponsorship, national championship events, membership, and media and public relations.
 
Voight was appointed to the director's job in 1993 when her boss, Jerry Lace, left to become executive director of the United States Figure Skating Association.
 
 
1 The Atlanta Journal and Constitution, January 5, 1996.
2 Training, July, 1996.
3 David F. Prouty. In Spite of Us. Brattleboro, VT: Velo-news, 1988.
4 The San Diego Union-Tribune, February 27, 1988.
5 Rocky Mountain News, July 8, 1995.
6 Chicago Tribune, October 24, 1993.
7 The Dallas Morning News, September 3, 1995.
8 The Dallas Morning News, September 3, 1995.
9 The New York Times, August 1, 1995.
10 Chicago Tribune, September 4, 1988.
11 Skiing, November, 1983.
Copyright 1997 Suzanne Lainson/SportsTrust

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