Summary: How Have 125 Division 1 FBS Athletic Director's Become Athletic Directors? Jeremy O'Brien Joins the Show to Share his Research<br> Hi Everybody, I’m Brian Clapp Director of Content for WorkinSports.com and this is the Work in Sports podcast.<a href="https://www.workinsports.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/qa_cover.png"></a><br> <br> We’re taking a slightly different approach to this QA session – earlier this year I had it in my head that it would be cool to track the career paths of 10 different <a href="http://www.workinsports.com/blog/want-to-become-an-nfl-general-manager-heres-ten-potential-career-paths/">general managers in the NFL</a>, <a href="http://www.workinsports.com/blog/how-ten-mlb-general-managers-began-their-sports-careers/">MLB</a> and <a href="http://www.workinsports.com/blog/want-to-be-an-nba-general-manager-here-are-10-potential-career-paths/">NBA</a>. I charted where they went to school, their first job, how they progressed and tried to draw some patterns and conclusions.<br> <br> It was a fun project and one that was well received on our site.<br> <br> Well, a week or two ago I was doing some research for my podcast interview with Shaun Richard, Associate Athletic Director at Ohio State and I stumbled upon <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/look-whos-leading-americas-big-time-college-athletic-jeremy-o-brien/">Jeremy O’Brien’s research that blew mine away.</a><br> <br> Jeremy is a senior at Miami, Ohio University the alma mater of two of my good fiends from the sports broadcasting world Chris Rose from NFL Network and Mike Shiffman at ESPN…but I digress.<br> <br> Jeremy decided to research the careers of all 125 div 1 athletic directors and look for patterns and themes that would emerge. It blew me away, so I invited Jeremy on to share some his findings about becoming an Athletic Director at major colleges.<br> <br> Jeremy welcome in!<a href="https://www.workinsports.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/jeremy-obrien.jpg"></a><br> <br> 1: We’ll dig into some of the granular results of your research, but first off were there any major themes or patterns that emerged as you went through this process – what was your big over-arching takeaway?<br> <br> 2: Let’s get into schooling – How important was it for a Athletic Director to have their master’s?<br> <br> 3: What about legacy – did it make any difference if the Athletic Director went to a school in the conference? i..e. they studied at an ACC school and then became an Athletic Director at at ACC school?<br> <br> 4: What about major? Was there a consistent theme on what major or degree led to these successful careers as an athletic director?<br> <br> 5: After completing this research – what did you learn about your career from a personal standpoint, are you going to change anything in your pursuit of becoming an athletic director?<br> <br> Thanks for talking this through with us Jeremy – great work, really valuable research.<br> <br> Alright that’ll do it for this Monday QA session – if you have questions for an upcoming QA session email me at <a href="mailto:podcast@workinsports.com">podcast@workinsports.com</a> – until then Wednesday I’m talking to Dan Rossetti President of Prodigy Sports – one of the largest sports recruiting firms in the nation!<br> <br> So tune in!
