Q: What is compliance? What are your responsibilities?
A: Basically, our office is responsible for maintaining all the records — monitoring and educating everyone involved in our athletic efforts to make sure we operate within NCAA, Southeastern Conference and Mississippi State rules and regulations. It covers every aspect from the recruiting all the way through the graduation of a student-athlete and also monitoring the activities of our coaches and attempting to monitor the activities of everyone involved in athletics. The challenging part is dealing with and trying to educate donors, boosters or people outside the campus that could jeopardize our efforts to operate within all the rules.
Q: What is your background educationally and professionally?
I have a bachelor’s and master’s degree in education from Mississippi State. I was a high school teacher, administrator and coach for 24 years mainly in north Mississippi. I had an opportunity to come work here in January 2002. My path to this job is certainly not what you would normally see. In the compliance profession nationally, there’s usually a couple of avenues that people get into athletic compliance by: some the athletic route with a master’s in sports management — that type deal where you come up through the sports side of it, the administrative or coaching side, and then there are some that get into athletic compliance whose background is in law and maybe don’t want to practice law but are involved in the athletic compliance aspect dealing with a lot of rules and regulations. I don’t think either one is better than the other. I think each institution has to figure out which one works best for them as far as their leadership in compliance.
Q: Do you have a typical schedule for the day?
A: There is no routine; normally there are things you have to do at certain times of the year, and you can plan your day, but those plans are rarely totally realized because there’s always something that comes up. You’re always a phone call or an email away from your day totally changing.
Q: What are the main things you have to get done?
A: During the academic year, we have monthly rules education meetings with a lot of our coaches and staff. At the beginning of the school year, there’s a large amount of paperwork that has to be done, forms that athletes have to fill out. We have meetings with every athletic team at least twice a year, some more, at the beginning of the fall and spring semesters educating them, and we drop by from time to time. There’s eligibility certification that has to be done each semester. We prepare all of the scholarship papers for student-athletes. We handle transfers. We meet with athletic academics. We do tutor education and work with the athletic academics staff and work with our medical staff. One of the things we tell athletes when they come in is they have to realize that once you become a college athlete, there’s an NCAA rule that pretty much governs your entire life in one way or the other, and they have to be aware of that.
Q: What would your advice be to someone wanting to enter the compliance field?
A: I think the key component is communication. We have to do a really good job in compliance of communicating with all the groups we deal with the rules and expectations. It’s challenging sometimes dealing with the vast array of personalities that you have to deal with. I think if you enjoy a challenging job and you want to be involved in athletics, then it’s something for the right person with the right personality, and it’s a great area to work in. It is not for everybody. There are times of confrontation and you’ve got to learn to handle those times, and there are times when “no” is the answer you have to give. Even when they don’t want to hear “no,” you have to figure out a way to communicate “no.” But I think our coaches realize with our staff here that while we do have to say “no,” we always try to find an alternative to what they’re trying to do that works within the rules. We don’t want to stifle our coaches’ ability to recruit and do the job they want to, but our coaches have to realize the obligation our university has to operate with integrity and honesty and everything be above board. That’s the challenge of this profession, but it’s also something that a lot of people really enjoy.