Blue White Illustrated

TAKING THE LEAD New president Eric Barron discusses his vision for PSU athletics in an interview with BWI athletics worked here at Penn State. I will tell you that's not true every- where." In early August, Barron spoke to Blue White Illustrated about some of the issues facing Penn State heading into the 2014-15 academic year. Here's what he had to say. What do you see as the most valu- able qualications for an athletics director, and how does Sandy Bar- bour t those qualications? It's an interesting phenomenon, be- cause you're watching people pick some very di6erent people, [such as] the CEO of a notable pizza company [in Michigan's David Brandon]. This is my thought: A diversity of experi- ences is worth a lot. So if I know that you can come at your job from the viewpoint of a student-athlete be- cause you've been there, that's an ad- vantage. If you can come at it from the viewpoint of a coach who was arguing for resources and working to get re- cruits, then that's an advantage. If you decided that one degree wasn't He had moved on, leaving for the University of Texas and later the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. A8er that, it was on to Florida State, where he served as president. But Eric Barron never entirely le8 Penn State. He had spent two decades in the university's College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, becoming its dean in 2002. During that time, he had developed an appreciation for Penn State's athletics programs, and he continued to pay attention even as his career took him elsewhere. Last fall, for instance, he found himself in a Denver bar, watching a Nittany Lion football game with his son and members of the local Penn State club. "A8er 20 years," he said, "it's in your blood." This past May, a8er four years at Florida State, he returned as Penn State's 18th president. He's had a whirlwind reintroduction, and athletic issues have been part of that process. Shortly a8er taking o7ce, he told the Pittsburgh Trib- une-Review that he believed Penn State should be rewarded by the NCAA for its success in implementing an array of recommendations contained in the Freeh report. In July, he hired Sandy Barbour as athletics director. Barron's interest in Nittany Lion sports goes back to his arrival in 1986. "I've always been a Penn State fan, from the day I set foot on the campus," he said. "It was quite a marvel to see that the faculty and everybody cared about how & A Q |

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