Jan. 25, 2005

Columbia, S.C. –
The University of South Carolina Athletics Department will host the 15th annual Sports Management Institute Executive Program this week (Jan. 27-29) on the USC campus.

SMI provides specialized executive management programs for sports management professionals. More than 40 current or former Director of Athletics and two conference commissioners have gone through the program since its inception in 1989. Among those sports leaders include: Kevin Anderson (AD at West Point Academy); Mitch Barnhart (AD at Kentucky); Mike Hamilton (AD at Tennessee); Bubba Cunningham (AD at Ball State); Daryl Gross (AD at Syracuse); Jeff Hathaway (AD at Connecticut); Rick Chryst (Commissioner, Mid American Conference); John LeCrone (Commissioner, Horizon League); and Dick Baddour (AD at North Carolina).

Mike McGee, Director of Athletics at South Carolina, was instrumental in helping develop SMI when he was the AD at Southern California. Founded as a joint venture of the athletics departments and business administration schools of Southern Cal, Notre Dame and North Carolina, South Carolina was added as a sponsoring institution in 1993. Beginning in 1997, the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA) joined SMI as a participating sponsor of the program, and in 2000 the Institute added the University of Michigan and the University of Texas as sponsoring institutions.