Jeff Schemmel has been passionate about sports since he was old enough to walk, hold a bat and throw a ball.

That passion carried him through a decorated career as a student-athlete at Kansas State and keeps him going as director of athletics at San Diego State. Now, it will guide him as he serves as chair of the Division I Championships/Sports Management Cabinet.

The newly established cabinet will have oversight of all Division I and National Collegiate sport committees; rules committees; the Football, Men’s Basketball and Women’s Basketball Issues Committees; the Playing Rules Oversight Panel (for information purposes); the Committee on Competitive Safeguards and Medical Aspects of Sports; and the Olympic Sports Liaison Committee. The Championships/Sports Management Cabinet – along with the Student-Athlete Awards, Benefits and Financial Aid Cabinet and the Recruiting Cabinet – replaces the former Championships/Competition Cabinet.

In addition to gaining a good grasp of the division’s new governance structure and its areas of responsibility, the cabinet will focus squarely on enhancing NCAA championships.

“I think the overarching goal of the championships cabinet is to make our championships even better than they are today,” said Schemmel. “That really starts with the student-athlete experience and goes to making sure they are efficiently run, the hosts are the best places we can have and they are good experiences not just for the student-athletes and institutions, but for the fans.”

NCAA championships are affected by the dramatically increasing costs of travel. Schemmel believes managing those costs while delivering the best championships possible will be one of the challenges facing the cabinet. However, he is confident it can be done if the cabinet and the Association remain focused.

“If we keep in mind that the No. 1 objective is to always make this the best experience for the student-athlete, everything else falls into place,” he said.

Things also have fallen nicely into place for Schemmel, a four-time track and field all-American, five-time Big Eight Conference champion and member of a national champion distance medley relay team at Kansas State in the late 1970s. In addition to serving as an athletics administrator at his alma mater, Minnesota and Conference USA, he also was senior vice president and executive director of development for the Arizona State University Foundation and formerly was a practicing attorney.

While Schemmel said the legal background never hurts, he believes something much more basic has prepared him for his role as the inaugural chair of the Championships/Sports Management Cabinet.

“I think anyone can be a chair of a cabinet like this as long as they bring with them a passion for the student-athletes, a passion for what we try to accomplish in intercollegiate athletics and is willing to spend the time,” he said.

The Championships/Sports Management Cabinet will meet September 16-17 in Indianapolis.