When Gene Smith earned his first athletic director job in 1986, he was one of just two Black Division I-A athletic directors, with Charles Harris at Arizona State being the other. With that came a series of challenges.
 
"I learned early on to swallow some of the things that I encountered," Smith said. "I wanted to be the best athletic director, but I also knew that I had a blessing and a responsibility to the Black community, to people who looked like me, to be successful because I didn't want to be the reason that higher authorities would say, we had somebody try it and look at how they failed.
 
"I wanted to overcome all obstacles. We couldn't fundraise, we didn't have business acumen, we weren't capable of establishing relationships that needed to be established. I knew those would be excuses if I didn't do an excellent job in those spaces."
 
Smith, an athletic director of 38 years and in his second stint on the Fiesta Bowl Board of Directors since 2021, turned out to be the perfect person to champion for the cause, even if he didn't know the true breadth of the impact he would have on the industry nearly four decades later.
 
As Smith, whose 19-year tenure at Ohio State as director of athletics closes with his retirement on June 30, prepares to exit, representation amongst FBS athletic directors is on the rise. Smith is one of 18 current Black FBS athletic directors and 30 total from underrepresented groups (minorities and females).


 
In the Big Ten Conference alone, Smith is one of five Black athletic directors.
 
"It's nowhere near where it should be, but significant progress has been made," Smith said. "Many of my colleagues who look like me are in very strong leadership positions, and I'm really proud of them. It's been fun to watch them grow and develop."
 
The opportunity for leaders from underrepresented communities to grow and develop is in large part due to Smith proving that a person's credentials and performance spoke the loudest, as well as his commitment to mentorship for others.
 
The first two-time recipient of the Sports Business Journal A.D. of the Year award (2010, 2016), Smith served as the first Black president of the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA) in 1994, was a member of the inaugural "Legends Class" NACDA Hall of Fame and has been recognized by Forbes, Sports Illustrated and Black Enterprise as one of the most influential minorities in American sports.
 
Smith's intentionality to bringing representation at the highest level in intercollegiate athletics is just as important as the 32 team and 117 individual national titles recorded by Ohio State during his tenure.
 
Five current athletic directors (UCLA's Martin Jarmond, Washington State's Pat Chun, Pittsburgh's Heather Lyke, Utah State's Diana Sabau and Division III Case Western Reserve's TJ Shelton) were all team members on Smith's staff at Ohio State at the same time. Unsurprisingly, given Smith's background, all five are members of underrepresented groups.
 
"Gene has meant everything to my career," Jarmond said. "I was blessed and fortunate to spend eight years with him (at Ohio State). What I learned, I can't put a value on. I can't begin to tell you how much he has meant to me, not only as an administrator, but as a man – as a Black man. The way he cares about people, his emotional intelligence, the way he leads with his heart; he's just one of the best I've ever seen do it."
 
Smith, a member of Notre Dame's 1973 national championship football team, served as an assistant coach at his alma mater from 1977-81 in which he helped the Fighting Irish win the 1977 national championship. After two years as a marketing representative for IBM selling computers, he re-entered the intercollegiate athletics space at Eastern Michigan as an assistant athletic director in 1983.
 
Then, at 29 years old, Smith was named Eastern Michigan's athletic director in 1986.
 
His administrative career was a journey from Eastern Michigan (1986-93) to Iowa State (1993-2000) to Arizona State (2000-05) before moving on to Ohio State in 2005. In 2016, Smith was promoted to senior vice president of the university, while continuing to lead one of the nation's elite athletic departments.
 
Asked to describe Smith in one word, Jarmond knew where to go.
 
"Caring. He cares. He cares a lot," Jarmond said. "There's a lot of ways you could describe him, but his heart – that's what makes him special. That's what makes him a beautiful human being."
 
It's a sentiment that is echoed by many, including the leader of Ohio State's deepest rival.
 
"Gene is a phenomenal colleague and has meant a great deal to me and many in this industry," said Warde Manuel, another of the Big Ten's Black athletic directors at Michigan. "He gives freely of his time to speak and mentor young people and aspiring administrators. I was fortunate to receive his counsel early on and throughout my career. His approach to people will be a lasting legacy."
 
Smith's people-first philosophy was evident when Forbes named Ohio State's Athletic Department as one of the 10 best organizations to work for in sports. The Buckeyes were the only college athletic department to make the list.
 
"It meant that we were living the values that were important and we were hiring the right people," Smith said. "The culture that we had and have particularly since COVID has been phenomenal. I'm big on making sure that everyone in our department understands that they're cherished, respected and their opinion matters.
 
"It's like the Maya Angelou quote: 'people will forget what you said or did, but they'll never forget how you make them feel.' She's 100% right with that."
 
For all the preconceived notions that surrounded Smith and other minorities in college athletics four decades ago, he squashed them all.
 
On top of the championships, fundraising achievements, All-American honors and countless athletes moving on to the professional ranks, cultivating an environment for student-athletes to thrive is Smith's pride point.
 
"Last year, we had 95% of our student-athletes, before they graduated, they already had jobs, were admitted to grad school or going pro," Smith said. "Our goal is to get to 100% and we're going to keep striving for that.
 
"People will think about the championships and things of that nature, but when I came here in '05, we had 324 of our over 1,000 student-athletes who were maintaining a 3.0 GPA. I wanted to change the culture, change the recruiting profile to make sure that we recruited student-athletes with character who wanted to be as competitive in the classroom as they are in their sport. The bottom line is this year, we project to have 809 scholar-athletes out of 1,100."
 
During his donor cultivation for an important new project, the final gift was secured to make it a reality. When the contract was finalized, the donor crossed out his name for the title of the project and wrote in Smith's. Hence the Eugene D. Smith Leadership Institute was created, funded by private support, to provide leadership, character and career development for all Ohio State student-athletes.
 
It is that commitment and belief in setting people up for success, whether it is his student-athletes for life after graduation or his staff for the next steps in their careers, that separates Smith from the rest of his peers, regardless of race or gender.
 
"It's impossible for me to quantify in words the impact he's had on me professionally and personally," said Chun, the first Asian-American athletic director to lead a Power Five school at Washington State who spent 15 years at Ohio State with Smith. "His job title may have changed, but at his core, he is a coach at heart. This business is about developing young people, but part of what makes Gene extraordinary is not only his willingness, but his ability to get the most out of people. I'm one of the many who benefitted from his broad, extraordinary skill sets."
 
In four months, Smith's trailblazing career on campus will close, but his work to make a difference on and off the field will continue with the Fiesta Bowl in a growing role on the Board of Directors. He first joined the Board in 2001 while overseeing the Sun Devils athletics program before vacating his spot when moving to Columbus. When the invitation to come back came 20 years later, it was natural to say yes.
 
For someone who has left a legacy of making a difference, his volunteerism on the Fiesta Bowl's Board of Directors is a perfect fit.
 
"When I was at Arizona State University, I was fortunate to work with the Fiesta Bowl to host games at Sun Devil Stadium," Smith said. "I knew their level of hospitality, which is the best in the business, so when I had the opportunity to come back on the Board, I embraced it. The things that the organization does are just phenomenal. All the different charities that they are involved in, the different young people that they have helped – the teachers and all of the programs – this is a great organization to be a part of. Great people and an unbelievable mission."