Leadership Amidst College Sports Turbulence: Tamica Smith Jones, COO of Kennesaw State Athletics

Welcome to the 72nd episode of the Sports Business Conversations podcast.

We wanted to mention the number of episodes to give you a little perspective of the number of people we’ve had a chance to talk to since launching this show a few years ago. Over 70 people who are leading, changing, and improving sports business in different ways. Each of the brings things to the table that have helped them find success: intelligence, foresight, experience, charisma. And so forth.

Tamica Smith Jones, who up until recently was the Chief Operating Officer of Kennesaw State Athletics, brings all those qualities to the table, and then sprinkles something unique to her: sheer force of will.

Smith-Jones came to KSU by way of UC Riverside, where she broke barriers as the first black female D1 athletic director in California. Returning to her hometown in Atlanta to take on that COO role, she has helped lead an athletic dept in the midst of enormous transformation, including a move from FCS to FBS for the Owls football team.

In our conversation, we talk about her inspiring path to Kennesaw State and how the COO role has evolved during this particularly tumultuous period in college sports. We talk about her leadership style, which she captures in her mantra “I’m a person, not a position”, working with athletes during the NIL era, and the essential role that athletics plays at a university. She also drops some hints about leaving Kennesaw State to take on her first role in professional sports…

Thanks for listening in on our conversation with Tamica Smith Jones, COO of Kennesaw State University.

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

The Sports Business Conversations podcast is a production of ADC Partners, a sports marketing agency that specializes in creating, managing, and evaluating effective partnerships between brands and sports. All rights reserved.

YOUR HOST

Dave Almy brings over 30 years of sports marketing and sports business experience to his role as host of the "1-on-1: Sports Business Conversations" podcast. Dave is the co-Founder of ADC Partners.

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