The Ohio State University athletic department will be under new leadership this summer. On Tuesday, Ohio State President Ted Carter announced the hiring of Ross Bjork to succeed Gene Smith following Smith’s retirement at the end of June.
Bjork currently serves as the athletic director at Texas A&M, where he was hired in 2019, and has also served in the same capacity at Ole Miss and Western Kentucky. Before taking his first director role at Western Kentucky, where he was the youngest athletic director in the country at the time, Bjork worked on the senior athletics staff at UCLA, the University of Miami, and the University of Missouri. He will begin his tenure at Ohio State on July 1.
“I have been extraordinarily blessed to be a product of college athletics as a student-athlete and fortunate to work with so many outstanding student-athletes, coaches, staff, and university leaders throughout my career, and Ohio State represents the culmination of these efforts,” Bjork said. “To be a part of Buckeye Nation, along with its storied traditions and long history of achievement, is a tremendous honor and a welcome challenge for me and our family. I can’t wait to get started.”
Bjork’s hire represents the culmination of a months-long search following Smith’s retirement announcement last August.
“Few athletics directors have established such an impressive and strong record of success in athletics, in the classroom, and throughout the community,” Carter said of Bjork. “The bar is incredibly high at Ohio State, and we have found in Ross a highly intelligent and effective leader, not to mention a fierce competitor.”
Smith called Ross “uniquely equipped to step into our Buckeye community and make an immediate impact,” and noted his final project as the leader at Ohio State will be to work with Ross to ensure a smooth transition.
Perhaps most notable with Bjork’s hire is his track record with NIL, an increasingly important factor in the ever-changing landscape of collegiate athletics. Under his leadership, Texas A&M developed one of the most formidable NIL networks in the country, and that work will continue in Columbus as Ohio State aims to build on its recent NIL-related momentum.
Bjork currently serves as the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA) first vice president and is on the NCAA Division I Student-Athlete Experience Committee. He has also served as part of numerous national organizations, including the NCAA Division I Working Group on Transfers and the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Oversight Committee.
Reach Dillon Davis at 740-413-0904. Follow him on Twitter @DillonDavis56.
