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Bowlsby sees the big and small of it all

By Michelle Brutlag Hosick
NCAA.org

Stanford Athletics Director Bob Bowlsby’s intercollegiate athletics career began inauspiciously. His first job was running tennis and indoor recreation facilities at the University of Iowa. He didn’t dream that he would one day run the athletics program at one of the nation’s most prestigious institutions, and he certainly didn’t imagine he would leave the flagship program in his home state to do it.

That facilities job at Iowa led to an assistant athletics director position at the University of Northern Iowa, where he managed the indoor, air-supported stadium and coordinated everything from athletics events to the circus to rock concerts. All the while, Bowlsby would work with student-athletes and coaches on their facilities needs, learning to be flexible and practicing his negotiation skills. No two days were alike, which is a pattern that has continued.

“(Facilities work) was a great training ground,” Bowlsby said. “That’s a real-world experience in intercollegiate athletics. I’ve been at this for 30 years, and I’ve never had an ‘average day.’ ”

Bowlsby hasn’t been your average athletics director, either. A former college wrestler who is passionate about Olympic sports, Bowlsby once chaired the NCAA’s Olympic Sports Liaison Committee and currently serves on the U.S. Olympic Committee Board of Directors. He loves a range of sports, citing the athleticism of basketball, the strategy of football, the physicality of wrestling, and the talent and effort it takes to excel in each.

He might be the only member of the Association to chair what he calls the “strange trifecta” of the Division I Wrestling Committee (member from 1987 to 1994), the Division I Men’s Basketball Committee (member from 2000 to 2005) and the Division I Management Council (member from 1997 to 1999 and chair in 1997, the first year of the federated governance structure).

“I always felt that I took more away from those experiences through the things I learned and the acquaintances I made than I brought to it,” he said. “Committee service is a big commitment, no doubt about that, but I believe in it.”

Another thing Bowlsby believes in is a broad-based athletics program with a commitment to academic excellence. That philosophy lured him from his home state of Iowa to Stanford, one of the most successful institutions in Division I, athletically and academically. Before the offer came in 2006, Bowlsby said he had not entertained the idea of ever leaving Iowa. When the announcement came, Bowlsby said many of his friends and colleagues thought he had lost his mind.

But the merger of world-class athletics and  world-class academics was a lure he just couldn’t resist.

“I don’t know that there’s any place that does it better than Stanford. The kids that come in the front door are extraordinary students and terrifically talented athletes. They go out the back door as young adults who have already achieved at an extraordinary level,” he said.

And his time as athletics director at Iowa was reaching a natural departure point. Construction had just finished on a $100 million renovation of the football stadium. Fundraising was at a high level. The coaching staff was stable. He had just completed his five-year term on the men’s basketball committee, and his youngest son was graduating from high school. He had two daughters living in San Diego, and Iowa’s president had announced he was taking a similar job at Cornell. Bowlsby called it “an alignment of the stars.”

While he acknowledges that maybe he should have “asked more questions” during the interview process, the fundamental things that attracted him to Stanford are still “every bit as good as I expected them to be.” 

“There is an extraordinary commitment to high achievement in all aspects of a student’s life,” he said. “There is a deep-seated tradition of doing things the right way – rules compliance, academic achievement, accomplishment without compromise. That’s what I expected to find here, and I did. Having said that, there were plenty of things to work on.”

Among them were the football program and fallout from the economic downturn. Stanford relies on various endowments for a large chunk of its financial support, and when those endowments plummeted 30 percent, the impact was profound. Bowlsby found himself struggling to maintain the breadth and quality of the programs that attracted him to the school, and it’s something that still is a struggle, even as the school maintains its grip on the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics Division I Directors’ Cup.

While Bowlsby has his eyes on the future now, he remembers his experiences in Iowa fondly. Building the University of Northern Iowa from a fledgling Division I program to a Missouri Valley Conference member with a home-and-home men’s basketball series with Iowa prompts many fond memories for him because the expectations were low and everything he accomplished was so substantial.

But one of the greatest professional experiences he ever had – even more meaningful to him than being sought out for the Stanford job – came at Iowa when Christine Grant announced her retirement. Grant, a pillar in the gender-equity community, was the director of women’s athletics at Iowa. She recommended that upon her retirement, the men’s and women’s programs merge under Bowlsby’s leadership.

“I don’t know that I’ve ever had a professional compliment greater than that,” he said. “Dr. Grant has a reputation as a pioneer, and for her to feel good about having what she built under my leadership was just an extraordinary compliment.”

An extraordinary compliment to a man who has done extraordinary things for the big sports and the small sports, at big schools and small schools alike.