Real Pod Wednesdays: Ohio State president Ted Carter talks first six months, what sports mean to him

Real Pod Wednesdays: Ohio State president Ted Carter talks first six months, what sports mean to him

[Music] welcome into real pod Wednesdays I’m Dan hope he’s Andy Anders and we are joined by a very special guest today as the new president of the Ohio State University Ted Carter is here with us Ted thanks so much for taking the time yeah thanks Dan Andy good to meet you guys I’m a follower of the 11 Warrior so uh I’m I’m a fan and I read you guys yeah we see a lot of sports memorabilia here in your office you’ve got a mirle ice Jersey Ohio State basketball all kinds of stuff just what does Sports mean to you well like a lot of the you know young kids I grew up playing sports uh not that far from here in in a small rural town in Rhode Island my dad was a hockey player played at Providence College uh my mom was a basketball player in high school so you know Sports were really important to our family and I grew up playing a lot of different sports like most kids I played baseball I ran track I played soccer and before I was 3 years old I was on ice skates and we lived on a pond in Rhode Island so I started skating at a very early age I I skated better than I ran and then uh I played all the way through high school I played a little bit hockey at 13 in Canada uh when I thought I was going to be really somebody in hockey and then I stopped growing like the rest of my my peers uh but when I got to the Naval Academy I tried out for the hockey team made it as a freshman and played all four years was a team captain in 1981 and sports was uh partly the reason I stayed at the Naval Academy not knowing what I was getting into if I was going to graduate which I did uh but more importantly it taught me the concept of team sports and uh most of my life whether it was in uniform or even in higher education has been centered around things I learned in sports particularly team sports you’ve been here for six months now just what have your first six months on a job been like it’s been awesome this is uh one of the largest most complex organizations let alone in higher ed uh not only in the state of Ohio in the country I me you think about it we’re we’re an organization that has uh you know 65 66,000 students uh 35,000 faculty and staff um you know you think about just the the parents groups uh the alumni 68,000 strong uh our fan base which uh according to Ryan Day tells me we’ve got over 12 million fans I think we could probably triple that U so it’s exciting to be here to know that we have such impact such influence not only in the state of Ohio but across all division one Athletics and quite frankly in higher education for the entire country and the world can you dive a little more into how your Athletics background shaped your approach as president uh you know I was a reluctant uh University administrator uh I I grew up flying fighter jets uh rebuilding aircraft carriers operating aircraft carriers so as I was into my mid-50s and the head of the Navy asked me to go run the US Naval War College up in Newport Rhode Island I had to say that’s that’s not me I how am I supposed to do that so they thought I was a different approach because of my operational background and uh so when I took that leadership skill up to Newport Rhode Island that’s when I started to think about this is the ultimate team sport higher education is a team sport uh and then of course I got to the go to the Naval Academy a historic uh division one sports program great football program uh and I was involved with cl C gladchuk the athletic director right away I ended up serving on the NCAA board while I was a superintendent or president of the Naval Academy so you know it’s all part of the overall mission at a place like the Naval Academy but it’s also what I like to call the front porch of a university like the Ohio State University it’s important uh it’s not just the what the front facing or the fun part of what people think about the university it helps Define our brand our culture uh and it’s part of what attracts some of the best student athletes in the country to want to come be here get their degree but compete we in the block O uh and that excites me still you came in here at time of transition Jean Smith and his final six months as athletic director what’s it been like just working with Jean during these first six months well uh just about anybody in the country that’s involved in athletics at the at the University of College level knows Jean Smith he he’s an icon uh he will be uh remembered as the you know arguably the definition of what an athletic director can and should be uh at a land grant R1 research University like like we are here at Ohio State uh interestingly I got to meet Jean Smith my first football game running the US Naval Academy so that was in 2014 our very first game was at Raven Stadium uh and uh there we are we’re playing the Ohio State University uh we had played them some years earlier a game that Navy almost won and a lot of Ohio State fans remember that they’re they’re very happy that one went the right way and when I got to uh the Baltimore Convention Center I was supposed to be addressing about 2,000 Navy fans and when I walked into the convention center the whole place was packed in scarlet and gray and there’s Jean Smith and uh we kind of chuckled about it but I got to get on a stage and address the Buckeye faithful and this is what I told him I said with Jean Smith standing right in front of me I said you you’re thinking you’re going to come in here and play a school with 4,400 students when you’ve got 55,000 on your campus you’ve got 36 division one sports but we got 35 so we have over a thousand student athletes and the one thing you’re going to know today is Navy will never quit and we were leading at halftime in that game now laws of physics eventually took over Ohio State on handily uh but Gan and I hit it off right there and I had a chance to interact with them a couple times after that so to come here and be reunited with Jean and just to have the privilege to work with with him for my first six months is we now in the last couple days of his his tenure has been a gift what was it that made you decide that Ross bork would be the right guy to succeed Jean Smith what gives you confidence that he’s the right guy to lead this athletic department forward yeah two two big things to take away one is there really is no replacing Jean Smith I could not we we had you know some of the best athletic directors in the country interested in the job what made Ross Stand Out was uh his experience uh he was the youngest division one athletic director in the country he had been through multiple athletic director programs some that had some controversy and that’s been noted I answered that at his opening press conference I made a comment that you know uh smooth Seas never made a good sailor and you know Ross had been through some rough seas and uh I thought he handled things about as well as he could and Ross has a view of the changing landscape of College athletics and we’re going to need that kind of leadership I mean as we’re sitting here doing this conversation something has probably just changed again in college athletics and Ross is that leader that’s going to help guide us through these next multiple chapters that we’re going to have one of the biggest changes coming up here is revenue sharing and of course this this year operated at a deficit for the athletic department um obviously some of that has to do with fewer home football games but um how how do you strike that balance in terms of Revenue generation in terms of Revenue sharing coming up like where do you see things fiscally for the program well a couple points as you said a $10 million deficit it was expected you know only six home football games that that year uh and actually that’s not that bad of a deficit considering that on many years we have eight home football games so I I have no doubt we’ll be able to recover that um you know from the beginning of where we saw where Athletics was going and we knew we were going to get into this re Revenue sharing model which we did support and of course it hasn’t been settled yet but we would expect over the next few months it we’ll get to that um we made one big bold statement and that is we’re going to maintain 36 division one sports I mean I watched during covid what schools like William and Mary and Stanford went through uh even in the state of Nebraska which happened before I got there uh the University of Nebraska at Omaha cut football and wrestling at the division 2 level to move into the summit League heavily criticized at the time uh and you know as I watched College landscape think about what it means to maintain these Sports uh it’s important once you get them to do everything you can to hold on to them you don’t want to lose that it’s too important to the student athlet so we’ve made a declarative statement that we’re going to hold on to that now having said that we’ve also got to look at what G re uh generates Revenue so for us right now it’s it’s football men’s basketball on occasion women’s basketball can be a contributor there and we’ve just got to make sure that we Main maintain even with this Revenue share model that we can do everything that we can to be self-sufficient uh this program has been self-sufficient and we anticipate it will be self-sufficient going forward and I would argue if you look across the entire landscape of college football uh you’re going to find only maybe three to five programs are going to be to say be able to say that in the next model obviously the last few years of nil Jean Smith has often used the term Wild Wild West it’s been kind of Chaos in your opinion do you think think this Revenue sharing model can fix some of the problems that have been around the last few years it won’t fix itself it it sets up a situation where we can actually put some more rules in guard rails around nil uh reduce the third-party collectives bring it inside control it but then more importantly for senior Administration whether it be at the conference or even at the NCA NCAA level uh it’s got to be monitored and there’s got to be rules put in place otherwise we’ll still be the Wild Wild West what do you look at as maybe other changes that need to be made in college boards well I think instead of talking about what other changes I think the more important piece is what should stay the same I mean does revenue share mean that college athletes are now professionals does it mean that they’re employees of the University uh I would argue that we do need to do everything we can at the NCAA level uh at our members of Congress that may be writing laws to help Define what student athletes are going to be we’ve got to maintain the student athlete part uh what has to be the attraction for some of you to come in where a jersey uh for Ohio State still has to be to get a degree here and we’ve been really really successful at that uh I’ve enjoyed that at every academic institution I’ve been uh division one athletes graduate a higher rate than anybody else uh we have the same thing here I mean our football program graduated with the highest grade point Point uh uh or graduation rate going over some more years is only one other school in the country that was Harvard I mean talk about some interesting bragging rights right um so those are things that we should be proud of and we should make sure that we don’t lose that so I’m a big suppor of making sure that as we go through this Revenue share model that we don’t lose the concept of the student athlete you know where teams are going to go conferences who’s in what conference what the NCAA relationship’s going to be with the college football the college football playoff it would all be speculation here but I think the one thing we can say is it’s going to change there’s going to be change um and we’re going to have to be uh reactive uh we’re going to have to be thinking ahead uh we’re going to have to be strategic in order just to be able to maintain our 36 division one programs and yet still continue to be able to compete and win in our football program what do you think has driven that academic success for the football team but for the the athletics department as a whole I think it’s cultural and I go right to the the leadership at the top I think Jean Smith uh should take great credit in that and then uh driving that through their coaches that this is something we care about uh you know our faculty Representatives that are in support there they’re also doing a great job so there’s there’s a team of support and you make sure our student athletes know that when you come here you’re not coming here to just play a sport you’re coming here to get a degree not everybody’s going to go be a professional a in fact very few and all of them are going to go on to be very successful in life because they came here they got a degree here and it wouldn’t be because we taught them what to think we taught them how to think and then you complement that with what they learned on the field on the ice rink on the court uh or or in the pool it’s going to make them successful in life obviously you know Athletics aren’t your only job of courses as University president um but with all this change going on and and with how in Athletics is at Ohio State as you mentioned how do you strike that balance between your duties there and your other duties to the university yeah it’s a really large complex organization um I try to practice this for people that would say well you’re a university president what do you actually do and of course the first thing I’ll say is why I don’t actually do anything I hire a lot of talented people to do all the really hard work uh now that’s a little bit of tongue and cheek but we really do have a lot of talent here and where we do have positions to fill we’re attracting some of the best talent in the country so uh in some ways I’m really a talent manager but I also have to tend to what I call the circles of influence and there are a lot of them and they don’t all have the same weight or gravity so we’ve been talking about sports that’s certainly a a huge circle of influence a big circle of influence especially when you’re talking about a fan base alumni coaches students all the pieces that go that facilities but then you look at the other big big pieces of who we are and what we do uh academics 15 colleges four Regional campuses uh our faculty which are world class are staff that support for all the students success the research that we’re doing here which is now approaching number 10 in the country we just passed Harvard we just passed UNCC Chapel Hill we’re we’re just about to go over $ 1.5 billion dollar in increasingly uh important research uh and then the Arts uh for which we are very strong here as well uh when you look at all those constituencies and then you start to look outside the oval the campus here now we’re talking about the general assembly you know that are writing state laws for how we’re going to do our business we’re going to give us our budget uh as a public un University um and then the the community itself so not just Central Ohio all of Ohio we’re the state’s Flagship and we should care about what the constituents of Ohio think about Ohio State and I’ve said this publicly already we should be a university for all Ohioans and we are uh what we do in a and a research uh touches all 88 counties in the state we have extension offices in every County uh I was just at our Worcester campus uh looking at our a technical institute it it’s an incredible gym I mean 3600 Acres of just beautiful landscape an oratorium that where we’ve got 100 acres of some of the most amazing plants that exist in the whole world uh these are things that we have and we do I’ll give you a great example we have uh seven medical colleges we’re one of the only universities in the world that has seven medical colleges to include a Veterinary uh Medical College that is one of its kind in in three states uh we have dental vans that travel all over Ohio that treat kids who are seeing a dentist for the first time and we do that for the state we do a lot of things like that that are so important to the state and I’m still learning every day about something else that we’re doing for the people of Ohio that just makes this institution so cool so the point of where I was going all that is you’ve got to understand your landscape you got to understand who your constituents are who those circles of influence are and you’ve got to attend to them you can’t do them all at once it’s kind of like 36 plates spinning all at once but you better know which one is slowing down it’s really important because you don’t want to let it fall um so that’s kind of how I view my job I’m I’m something of a conductor uh I work very closely with our Board of Trustees which are again a worldclass group of men and women appointed by the governor who care deeply about this institution that do this job selfishly uh uh selfishly uh for nine years that’s their tenure I mean it is a a really tough job for them to do so we’re thankful that we have all this support here um and I’m excited to be here if you can’t tell that already the Big 10 is now at 18 teams of Oregon Washington USC and UCLA joining the conference what do you think that those four schools bring to the Big 10 well first of all they’re all four members of the Au so these are major research universities that are in the top now 71 schools in the country so they’re joining an elite group of academic powerhouses in the Big 10 uh that’s that’s an important price of admission to get into the Big 10 and something that was really discussed and will continue uh as we you know hold on to what we are I mean all 18 of these schools have all their libraries interconnected electronically it’s the third largest repository of information in the world just that alone is a inspiring so these schools are first and foremost academic powerhouses but they also bring two big things they bring great football programs and they bring great fan bases and I think that’s the biggest formula to getting into the Big 10 do you think the Big 10 will continue to expand and what are the different things that you think that this conference should be looking for for when vetting potential future members yeah um I’m going to say that whatever Ted Carter thinks on this really doesn’t matter because uh we can sit here and speculate what’s going to happen next week and the week after and whatever we come up with probably going to be wrong um what I do know is U change is inevitable uh and we’re going to see it and uh we’ll we’ll determine what happens next when when the next thing happens so you know we’re just going to have to go into wait and see mode changes inevitable I think is an interesting way to view things because you know it you have to embrace change right to to learn and adapt to a major job like this what what instilled that mindset in you well uh maybe a little bit in my own career um if you look at where I’ve been and what I’ve done from flying in F4 Phantoms to being a Top Gun guy going into F14 Tomcats for most of my life and then I didn’t want to go be an aircraft carrier Captain but somebody said I should go do that so I had to go to a nuclear power and engineering prr was really hard I was 40 years old I had to go do Master’s level Plus work uh at 40 years old and then eventually go rebuild a carrier and command one and do all these things at Sea when you go out to sea uh everything gets a vote and a lot of it isn’t yours you know so the ocean is a is a crazy place and if you’re involved in flying in combat or any type of operations there are so many other elements that get a vote in what happened so you have to be uh a master of change and be will willing to look at situations and be able to make decisions often times with imperfect information uh and that’s what’s key to a lot of these types of uh high impact jobs it doesn’t matter whether you have three seconds to make an information uh decision because you’re moving at 600 miles an hour or if you got four days to make a decision at some point you’re going to have to make a decision and that decision is often going to be based on what is the Dynamics of what’s already has changed and even sometimes a prediction of what will change without even knowing what that’s going to be are there any you know particular lessons you think you’ve learned just in your first 6 months here at Ohio State maybe things you didn’t expect coming in a couple of things one is uh everybody in the state cares about Ohio State now if you live here in the Buckeye state you probably already know that uh I came in here sort of expecting that but as I get around there’s a different level of interest in Ohio State than any place else I’ve ever been they people care about Ohio State and not just Sports they do care about that too but it’s everything um I think because I’ve been so many places and I’ve seen so many different things uh I’ve evolved to be you know if you if we were sitting doing this interview when I was 25 years old and I just graduated Top Gun I probably would have told you I knew just about everything about anything that’s kind of what happens when you go to a school like that the longer you’re around the more you realize you don’t know everything so when I’m in front of a group of professionals over any topic the first thing I remind myself every time I go in the room is I will not have the answer and I’m not the smartest person in the room and that type of humble approach where you draw the best information the best ideas from people is often how you get to the best Solutions how well have you gotten to know Ryan day over the last six months and just what are your impressions of his leadership of the football team I’ve got to know Ryan very well and we spent some time together some one-on-one time together we’ve been at Big 10 meetings together we’ve been on airplane together we’ve we’ve had a lot of time to talk and uh I’ve very impressed with him I’ve been impressed with what he’s doing within the leadership programs within football I’ve been impressed with the coaching hires he’s made this offseason he’s recruiting well um I I am obviously I’m watching and I’m paying attention like everybody else I have high expectations this year and uh just bottom line is I’m really impressed with Ryan day we’re sitting in this office and and this might be a little off topic here but I just wanted to ask like what’s your favorite piece of memorabilia in here and the story behind it well there’s a lot of things in here but uh you know as a as a sports fan and as somebody that played hockey and and even played a lot of men’s hockey I gotta go to Mikey rion’s Jersey from 1980 uh Olympic hockey uh gold um that that came into my possession through uh a couple of mutual friends but maybe even a little more interestingly is the picture from the cover Sports illustrat that’s above it so that is an actual um photograph that was given to me by Hans clut me who used to be the uh photo editor for sports illustr so in 1983 I was a young Lieutenant flying off the USS Midway and it was the height of the Cold War intercepting Soviet bomber aircraft that were trying to locate our aircraft carrier I intercepted a Soviet airplane I was taking pictures for photographic evidence and I sent him an unclassified version of a photograph of a Soviet airplane just by looking up his address in Sports Illustrated and he sent me that picture and he signed it wow so I’ve been carrying that uh frame picture from the cover of Sports Illustrated to I what I still think is the greatest comeback uh win of any sports moment ever uh so that’s probably my my my favorite piece over there uh there’s a number a couple of other pieces uh the Blue Angel helmet over there you might say that’s not sports related but you want to talk about an athletic event flying with the blue angels that was my actual last flight in the Navy flying uh in the back seat of lead solo airplane number five which is that model over there uh in 2016 I got to actually fly over the Naval Academy in the actual show as the head of the Naval Academy and uh I was 57 years old when I did that flight wow um and they videotape you the whole show so if you pass out under high G there’s no faking it uh it’s a 45 minute show the two- seat jet had no air conditioning it was 100 degrees in the cockpit and they were over under bets on how many times the vice admiral passed out when I got back and the one that had zero was nobody but that was the winning bet I would want to ask you we see when you’re at the sporting event you always wear the the lever jacket with the Ohio State logo on it just what does that jacket mean to you so that is a real leather jacket that is given to aviators when they get their wings of gold and uh it’s just just a reminder that uh I grew up in that world uh flying in fighter jets uh is is part of like being on an athletic team uh the most successful fighter squadrons operate and think that way and I to me there’s a crossover between what I did in the cockpits of f4 F-14 and F18 super Hornets to playing Athletics to just now being just part of the landscape here uh principally as an administrator but also a fan and know you’ve been to a lot of sporting events here already has there been a favorite one so far oh that one’s easy uh watching our women’s ice hockey team win the national championship being on the the ice with the coach muzerall and uh the women and just seeing the excitement on their face uh it’s it’s hard to even put into words just how awesome that was to be there uh in New Hampshire watching them beat Wisconsin how much excitement is there for that first Ohio State football game as president it’s going to be awesome now this will not be my first Ohio State football game but it will be my first one as president so yes I’m I’m really excited about I’m excited about the whole season uh you know I got a news flash for everybody we’re going to be really good this year I love it love the confidence the um um obviously the roster there too but uh you got to drop the puck at a Blue Jackets game too right uh we were talking to to Ben earlier and he he mentioned that you as in terms of NHL you kind of root for whichever team you’re closest to so are you uh are you converting a blue Jack fandom absolutely yeah um now they’re going to have a whole new team they get new general manager new coach coming in some new players um but you know anything can happen uh you know the year that I dropped the puck for the Washington Capitals at an outdoor hockey game at our Stadium rank in Annapolis they won the Stanley Cup so and they were in the middle of the pack when that game happened against Toronto and it was in early March the exact same time of year that we’re going to be hosting the Blue Jackets so yeah I’ll be rooting for the Blue Jackets uh I really enjoyed the Stanley Cup this year year like everybody else it was fun to see a Canadian team against a US team uh in the two farthest corners of the North America that you could be an Edmonton and Miami uh and of course it had to go to game seven right so yeah I mean you just got to love that type of uh you know theater when it comes to sports do you have like a favorite story from your own career as a hockey player oh yeah so uh team captain 1981 uh the city of Annapolis and the Naval Academy created a a hockey tournament uh in a little bit of a Gest of the the famous Bean t uh the bean pot tournament in in Boston ours was the Crab Pot tournament and it got started my freshman year at Navy so in 1978 was the first year we did it we won it we beat ramma Post State who was a division three National Champion um and uh in the year that I was senior uh we had Penn State in the tournament and the final game was Penn State against Navy we were down uh four to three with about two minutes left I was on the ice uh playing Center it was five on five and uh I drew the puck back to uh uh best player on our team John Knight got the shot off rebound right off the goalie pad instinctively I got it and just banged it in tied four to four we end up in regulation 4 to four we go into overtime the head of the Naval Academy um uh vice admiral Bill Lawrence who had been a very famous prisoner War watch the whole game he dropped the puck he was there uh and overtime The Carter Johnny Knight team came in again this time I had the assist and John Knight got the goal and we win the game 5-4 and we carry the crap out you’d think we won the Stanley Cup it was you know I mean I look back on it it was all small town but you know it was so big but here’s the kicker uh Admiral Lawrence wrote a letter to my parents saying how exciting it was to be there in person and to witness us beating Penn State in overtime and you know as I read the letter I had that flash of moment now this is a time when we were just starting to wear face Shields it was the first year that we had face shields in ice hockey and as I took that face off I just described to you I remember that moment I looked up every single guy on the ice had some blood on them somewhere so I mean that’s how hard fought the game was um both my parents sadly passed away but when my wife and I went to take care of the their household uh Goods that letter was still hanging uh in the house I mean it meant that much to them and uh so it just shows the power of writing a letter when somebody does something great and I try to remember that I write a lot of letters here for when our athletes do something special I know we’re running short on time here so is there anything else that you want uh Ohio State sports fans to know about you or any message you have for them um I think the thing they should probably know about me is uh just how happy I am to be here I’m I don’t know how it actually happened that I got to be in this job this was not my plan this was not my wildest imagination um and every day that I’m here because I get to work with such great faculty and staff and our students everything that is here at Ohio State even during some of the most challenging times that we’re seeing in our nation this is an amazing place and Ohioans and all sports fans Not Just Buckeye fans should be proud of what we’re doing here at the Ohio State University well Ted we want to thank you thank you so much for your time welcome to Columbus and we hope to have you back on again in the future absolutely thanks thank you

Sports have always played an important part in Ted Carter’s life, but he’s come to understand just how much they mean to Ohio State fans in his first six months as OSU’s president.

Just before the halfway point of his year as the leader of The Ohio State University, Carter sat down with us for a 30-minute conversation last week to talk about his first six months on the job, what sports mean to him as a former Navy hockey player, the athletic director transition from Gene Smith to Ross Bjork, how Ohio State is preparing for a new era of college sports and more.

We bring you that conversation in its entirety on this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays.

The rundown of what we talked about with Carter:

0:00 Intro
0:27 What Sports Mean to Ted Carter
1:49 Carter’s First Six Months as President Have Been “Awesome”
2:40 How Sports Have Helped Shape Carter’s Approach as President
4:12 Working with Gene Smith A “Privilege” for Carter
6:06 Why Carter Hired Ross Bjork as Athletic Director
7:11 OSU Expects Athletics to Remain Self-Sufficient, But Won’t Cut Sports
9:22 Carter Wants Athletes to Remain Students, Not Employees, in Revenue Sharing Era
12:51 How Carter Balances His Many Duties as OSU President
16:54 What West Coast Expansion Will Add to Big Ten
18:29 How Naval Career Prepared Carter to Embrace Change
19:59 Carter Learning Just How Much People Care About OSU
21:16 Carter “Very Impressed” with Ryan Day
21:58 Miracle on Ice Jersey, Blue Angels Helmet Among Carter’s Prized Possessions
24:58 Women’s Hockey National Title An Early Highlight of Carter’s Presidency
25:21 Carter Expects Ohio State Football to “Be Really Good This Year”
25:46 Carter Already A Columbus Blue Jackets Fan
26:46 Carter’s Favorite Moment from His Own Hockey Career
29:12 Becoming OSU President Beyond Carter’s “Wildest Imagination”

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