Dell Robinson, associate commissioner for legislative and compliance services for the Division I Mid-America Conference for the last 10 years, has been named commissioner of the Division II Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.

Robinson, who will begin his duties at the GLIAC June 15, is replacing retiring commissioner Tom Brown, who has presided over the league since 1992. Robinson will become the sixth commissioner in 37-year history of the league.

Robinson is the first ethnic minority to lead a non-HBCU Division II conference. Division II recently experienced its first female commissioner appointment when Julie Ruppert took over at the Northeast-10 in May 2008.

Grand Valley State University Athletics Director Tim Selgo, who currently serves as the league’s executive council president, noted Robinson’s wealth of administrative experience as being integral to his appointment.

“Having worked in a conference office setting and having been a student-athlete himself will be of great benefit while working from the commissioner’s chair,” Selgo said. “Although he has spent most of his career in Division I, Dell’s work in college athletics and his personality encompasses all of the attributes of Division II. We look forward to his leadership.”

Robinson was a football student-athlete at Ohio, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in sports management in 1988. Robinson earned his master’s degree in sports administration from Iowa State in 1992.

The experience to which Selgo refers includes Robinson’s service in NCAA governance as a member of the Division I Management Council and the Association-wide Committee on Sportsmanship and Ethical Conduct. He also chaired the Selection Review Committee.

Robinson also was a member of the 2002-03 class of NCAA Leadership Institute for Ethnic Minority Males and a member of the NCAA Fellows Leadership Development Program, experiences Robinson cited as being particularly beneficial in preparing him for a leadership position in intercollegiate athletics.

“Those programs expanded my bandwidth tenfold,” he said, noting particularly the mentoring component of the Fellows program that paired him with then-Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference Commissioner Charles Harris (former chair of the Division I Management Council). “Having that viewpoint of working with him and watching agendas develop and how he dealt with various stakeholders was very important to me.

“Those programs also exposed me to other facets of athletics administration – I had never been to the NACDA convention or been given opportunities to experience much outside of my day to day activities in compliance.”

Before joining the MAC, Robinson served as assistant commissioner for compliance from 1996-99 at the Western Athletic Conference and as the director of compliance and enforcement for the Southwestern Athletic Conference from 1992-96.

He said while his experience is primarily with Division I conference operations, he relishes the opportunity to make a difference in Division II.

“I have worked at three different conferences with varying missions and school sizes and a mix of public and private institutions, so I have seen a lot along the lines of athletics and higher education. And in looking at Division II’s philosophy, I am impressed with balance and community engagement and some of the other initiatives in the Division II strategic plan that make this a good fit for me,” Robinson said.

He also pointed to a different expectation level when it comes to revenue generation at the Division II level. While Division I conference operations emphasize marketing and media rights on a national scale, Division II is more community and regionally based.

“The spirit to be entrepreneurial exists at both levels, but at Division I there is a serious expectation that you should be able to get it done with no excuses,” Robinson said. “On the other hand, there is a niche market in Division II – people’s allegiance to and affinity with their institutions is something I find unique. People who work in Division II tend to stay with their institutions for some time. Something about that intrigues me.”

Selgo said among Robinson’s priorities will be exploring league expansion, particularly in Ohio, where a few institutions are matriculating into Division II membership.

“We’re looking at adding members to help us with travel costs and missed class time and so on, and Dell obviously has been through that with expansion in the MAC,” Selgo said. “We also believe we have the potential for growth in sponsorships and more of a media outreach for our conference. We think Dell brings a lot of insight and added value to our league in those areas as well.”