Blue White Illustrated

A VISION FOR THE FUTURE very edi.ce, no matter how modest or ambitious, rests atop a foundation. Without that unseen structure supporting the parts that everyone no- tices, everything crumbles. When Sandy Barbour was named athletic director last July a0er a decade as AD at Cal, Penn State president Eric Barron hailed her as a visionary administrator who was well-prepared for the demands of running "an institution that should be at the forefront of athletic leadership." Since her appointment, she has been laying the groundwork for the kind of across-the-board success to which, she says, Penn State can and should aspire. The university boasts a 31-sport varsity athletic program that, on the modesty- ambition continuum, skews heavily toward the latter. But it is faced with ongoing .nancial challenges brought on by the Sandusky scandal, challenges that have not fully abat- ed even though the NCAA and Big Ten have abandoned the sanctions they levied against the athletic department in 2012. Barbour has already taken a number of steps aimed at helping Penn State recover from the post-scandal fallout while building on the successes of the past. She has reor- ganized Intercollegiate Athletics into four administrative divisions: business and .nance; student-athlete perform- ance, health and welfare; internal and external operations; and administration. The changes "will allow us to modern- ize our business while taking a national leadership role in intercollegiate athletics," she said when they were an- nounced in March. Barbour is also overseeing a facilities master plan that will upgrade the school's athletic infra- structure and is helping raise the private funds needed to transform those projects from blueprints into reality. She has brought in a number of new executives, notably Phil Esten, who was appointed chief operating o/cer a0er pre- viously serving as one of her lieutenants at Cal, and Lynn Holleran, a former Minnesota ad- ministrator who is now senior as- sociate AD for administration. Earlier this year, Barbour also ex- tended the contracts of basketball coaches Patrick Chambers and Coquese Washington. The goal is to be nationally competitive in all the sports in which Penn State .elds teams while maintaining the academic commitment for which Nittany Lion athletes have long been As Penn State emerges from the most turbulent period in its history, its first-year athletic director initiates a plan for long-term success E I N T E R V I E W S A N D Y B A R B O U R NATE BAUER nbauer@bluewhiteonline.com FARSIGHTED In her first year on the job, Bar- bour has reorganized Penn State's athletic department into four administrative divisions. Now that her team is in place, Barbour is turning her attention to PSU's master plan, which in- cludes provisions for improved facilities. Pho- to by Steve Manuel

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