By Bryan Delgado ('12)
Kicking off the 2010 Follett’s Sports Business Forum speakers series was Alan Thomas (’93), the Associate AD of External Operations at the University of Georgia. His presentation started by telling the crowd it was his first trip back to Athens since he graduated 17 years prior.
Mr. Thomas first reminisced about his experiences at Ohio University, namely the challenging interview process conducted by the legendary Doctor Charles Higgins (‘94). He felt that his time spent in Athens was well worth it, saying, “Everything about me and my career comes back here to Ohio U.”
To begin his presentation, Thomas recapped his career from the time he left Athens to his current location. He was fortunate to have stops at the University of Florida and Auburn University in the marketing and media departments. From there Thomas had his first stop at the University of Georgia working as a regional fundraiser for the university before moving into multimedia rights in the athletics department. After Georgia, he left for Schutt Sports where he credits the experience to furthering his knowledge of the business side of Athletics. His last move was back to Georgia in 2004 where he started in his current position.
Reflecting on his own career, Thomas had some advice for all of the students in the audience about their careers and the future, “Your path may take you different directions. Don’t set the path, set the goal 10 years from now and let the path take you there.”
At the end of the presentation, he shared his keys to being successful, accumulated over his many years of working in the sports industry. Some of those included:
• Bring your best effort every single day at what you do. Do your best at what you do.
• Be an all star in the role you have, but be the best sixth man for everything else.
• If you see it, you own it. Doesn’t matter what.
• Deal with people directly.
• Don’t walk away from negative people, run from them!
• Be a sponge.
• Be prepared for change. It’s not about the change, it’s about how you handle it.
Thomas then fielded questions from the assembled students and faculty about issues they felt were important in college athletics. He was first asked about searching for new revenue streams, which he responded will have to come from new media projects. He followed this point by saying that existing contracts currently in place for traditional media are set for the foreseeable future. He feels that it is his main job to keep and drive new revenue streams creatively.
When asked about his future, he replied that he would enjoy the chance to be an Athletic Director. Thomas then shared his four things that will be most important to him as an athletic director: Graduating student athletes, Playing by the Rules, Winning Championships and Fiscal integrity. He stressed the need to be fiscally responsible but at the same time support the sports you put on the field. His advice was, if you’re going to have a sport, make sure you put them in a position to succeed.
