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enough and you needed to have addi- tional expertise that would further your career and your ability to do your job, I think that's a big plus. I think it's a really good signal when a student-athlete ends up with an MBA or another degree. I like the idea of people climbing the ladder and being at di8erent schools, because you get very di8erent perspec- tives. There's no doubt in my mind that institutions do this very, very di8erently. How they operate their athletic pro- gram, how dependent they are on the university, the degree of oversight they have, the degree to which they're out there competing for the best, the degree to which they care about Olympic sports, the balance between football and basketball – there are big di8erences. So climbing that ladder and having those diverse experiences makes a big di8er- ence to me. I think Penn State with its stature and breadth of programs really needed a sitting AD, someone who had sat in the job as AD. All of those things in my mind make a di8erence. So she really has all of those di8erent components if you look at her resume: [played] two sports, was captain of a team, was a coach, was successful, has an MBA and also a master's degree in sports management, [has been an ad- ministrator at] Tulane, Notre Dame, Cal and Northwestern. There's a variety of experiences there. Two jobs that span 14, 15 years of AD experience. A lot of di8erent experiences in the midst of that. And there are a lot of other things that you want to make sure they're good at. Fundraising is a big deal these days. So in my mind, that set of experiences is what makes her a good hire. She mentioned at her introduction the MBA that she received from Northwestern. Do you see that sort of business expertise being a more es- sential part of the job than it was 15 or 20 years ago? De7nitely. When you think opera- tionally, when you think about the con- tracts, when you think about the degree to which you may be evaluating media rights or looking at other sources of rev- enue – all those things are much more important than they used to be. You're talking a $100-million-plus budget. That business sense is important. You mentioned at her introduction that you spoke to Cal's chancellor about her. What was he able to say to you to reassure you that the chal- lenges she faced with respect to grad- uation rates and their stadium recon- struction project were unique to Cal and were not red (ags that Penn State should be concerned about? You look at someone's credentials and you look at what people say about them and this becomes the fundamental part of a search. Then you go out there and read what other people say about them. Of course, I have a healthy sense of knowing whether I'm reading something that is accurate or not. Because we like to look at controversy. So you do see APR issues and you see stadium issues. Let's take those two in turn. My experience with APR – and I'll take the experience straight from this insti- tution – is that when I was a faculty member and I was teaching, I got a little form to 7ll out about the football play- ers. Basically, it said, "Has so-and-so gone to class? What was his score on a quiz?" It's a whole list. If I didn't see that person in class or they got a poor grade, [Joe] Paterno sent that student straight to my o9ce. I would swear it would be the next day. Dr. Barron, I'm sorry, I won't miss another class. Coaches control APR. It's just a simple fact. Have you ever in your life heard an athletic director get credit for a great APR? Never. I've never in my life heard an athletic director get credit for it. I've heard a lot of coaches get credit for a great APR. And you see this change and di8erence in teams. You might say, OK, women's soccer, look how well they do. Then you go to a di8erent school, maybe it's someone who has a national cham- pionship in basketball, and all their players leave at the end of their fresh- man year. Coaches and ADs have very small contractual obligations typically in this nation toward graduation success rate. This is everybody's attitude. But what I did hear from the chancel- lor was that [Barbour] was pushing hard on this issue and she wasn't getting sup- port. They have a report coming out this fall on academics and athletics. And I thought to myself, OK, I've read about this issue, I'm going to call up the chan- cellor and say, you've got this report coming out, am I going to read some- thing about Sandy Barbour in it? He said just the opposite: "She's the one who Sandy went to the Big Ten meetings with me, and I was astounded by the number of ADs who came up to me and said what a great hire she is." "

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