A regular column by Athletic Director Bill Husak.
February 2002
My intention in doing these articles is to have our fans become acquainted with others in the Department. In this article, I have asked Dan Smith, our Assistant Athletics Director for Compliance and Student Services to acquaint you with his role in the Department. After serving in the Army, Dan attended and earned his B.A. in Journalism/Public Relations from Colorado State University. His work experience includes Media Relations/Sports Information positions within the athletics programs at Metropolitan State College of Denver, Regis University, California State University, Sacramento and Colorado State University. Dan had served as the Sports Information Director at Loyola Marymount and was promoted to his current position two years ago. Dan and his wife Elizabeth are enjoying the company of their three-month-old son Taylor. With that background, let me turn it over to Dan.
I'm currently in my fifth year as a member of the administrative staff in the athletics department here at Loyola Marymount University. My background, experiences and future goals have allowed me to accept the Compliance position for the purpose of providing better service to our program. During my two years as the Compliance Officer here at LMU, I have had the opportunity to study and learn how the NCAA governs itself. There are a vast number of rules and regulations we follow with regard to amateurism, ultimately attempting to protect the integrity of the opportunity for young men and women to compete in collegiate sports. This pursuit often times can be difficult, however, I believe that we all hold a responsibility to attempt to follow the rules to the very best of our ability. Each of us should continually make efforts to seek out and/or accept education of these rules in order to help our student-athletes succeed, both academically and athletically.
My charge as the Compliance Officer is to ensure that our student-athletes, coaches, administrators, fans and supporters all follow the NCAA rules. This may seem like a daunting task, however, through education and relationship building we can achieve this goal. There are a number of tools at our disposal that can help all of us follow the rules. First, the NCAA Manual can now be accessed by anyone through the NCAA website at www.ncaa.org which has been a valuable and easily accessible resource. Secondly, I have set up a Compliance section on this website - http://lmulions.fansonly.com/compliance/loyo-compliance.html - to assist our coaches and fans, as well as our prospective and current student-athletes. A number of topics are accessible on our website that hopefully can answer many of the questions often asked by recruits and current student-athletes. It even offers our Athletic Boosters a section of Do's and Don'ts that can help them understand their role as a supporter of our program.
It is certainly an exciting time to be involved with the athletics program here at Loyola Marymount University. Our goal is to provide the best opportunity possible for our student-athletes to succeed academically and athletically, and to help them develop into responsible citizens. I sincerely hope that you agree with this philosophy and will join us in our pursuit of excellence. Should anyone ever have questions or concerns, please feel free to e-mail me at drsmith@lmu.edu.
Go Lions!
