Ross Bjork is leaving Texas A&M to become the new Athletic Director at Ohio State. Here are his opening comments as he's introduced to the media for the first time.
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00:00 I'm gonna get a little technology going here. OH! Alright, greetings Buckeyes.
00:09 Thank You President Carter for those very kind words and your introduction,
00:13 your support, and your leadership through this process. I think I'm his very first
00:18 hire here at Ohio State, so the goal will be not to mess it up for sure, but I'm
00:24 really excited to join your team and join the Ohio State University. You have
00:29 my pledge that I will work hard every single day for the Buckeyes, especially
00:34 our student-athletes, to make sure that we provide the best athletic and
00:38 academic experience possible while adhering to the Buckeye core values and
00:44 fulfilling the mission of this great University. Okay, some people just stood
00:49 up when I got introduced, but we need to stand up for Gene Smith. The entire
00:53 audience needs to give Gene Smith a standing ovation. Absolutely, absolutely.
01:01 Absolutely. Gene, thank you for those those remarks and your friendship and
01:11 your mentorship over the years. I first met Gene Smith in the summer of 1997. I
01:17 was an entry-level development officer at the University of Missouri. He was the
01:21 athletic director at Iowa State, and it was like, "Oh my
01:27 God, there's Gene Smith. We actually get to meet him. He's actually gonna talk to
01:33 us." And he's always been accessible. He's always been down-to-earth, and that's
01:38 gonna be my job to make sure that I continue that type of legacy here at the
01:43 Ohio State. The people, the tradition, the excellence. I'm humbled and honored to be
01:48 chosen to serve as a senior vice president in Wolf Foundation. Eugene
01:53 Smith, that's an honor right there, endowed director of athletics starting
01:58 later this summer and to replace the legend Gene Smith. This may take me a
02:03 while. I've got some thoughts here. I've got some comments, and those folks,
02:07 if you're standing, you know, bend your knees. Be flexible up there. No one is
02:13 just born into this enterprise of college athletics. So for our family and
02:18 myself, this is a surreal feeling to be standing up here. We always tell our
02:23 athletes to pursue their dream. For us, this is what dreams are made of. I
02:30 simply wanted to work in sports, and entering college as a football player, I
02:35 was going to be a high school teacher and a coach because that was the way
02:40 that I only knew to work in sports. But you can't just wake up one day and say, "I
02:45 want to be the athletic director at the Ohio State or Texas A&M or Ole Miss or
02:51 Western Kentucky." And going to college was probably not going to be an option
02:55 for me. I'm a first-generation college graduate, and because of athletics, I was
03:00 given this great opportunity. I've been part of a football team or an
03:05 athletic enterprise for over 40 years. Fifth grade tackle football in Dodge
03:11 City, Kansas. So I'm really a product of this enterprise, and I'm grateful every
03:16 single day. So we heard about family. So I wasn't born or raised in Ohio, but I'm
03:20 a product of Ohio. So my mom, Linda, her family, they grew up on the Bame family
03:25 farm just outside of Williamstown, to be specific. Does it have a stoplight or a
03:30 stop sign? I can't remember. I think it's just an intersection.
03:32 Williamstown, Ohio. And her side of the family moved to Ohio in 1851. Great
03:40 grandpa, my great-grandpa Bame, built the family farm in 1908. John, am I getting
03:44 this right? The family historian, my uncle. So all of these folks over here are
03:49 Buckeye raised. All the Bame family, the Russ Meisels, the Bjorks. There's this
03:54 great Buckeye connection. My mom worked at Marathon Oil Company in Finley and
03:58 was getting transferred to Denver, Colorado. That's where she met my dad
04:02 after he served in the Vietnam War, and they got married in the home church,
04:06 Eagle Creek Church, right there in Hancock County. They moved to Dodge City,
04:10 started to go to work, raised a family. So here's the deal. When you grew up in
04:14 Kansas, we had two choices. Go to Denver with my dad's family or go to Ohio for
04:19 the Bame family. Christmas, Thanksgiving, weddings, summer vacation. So if we came
04:24 to Ohio, we'd find I-70 in Kansas and we'd drive the whole way, no
04:29 turns, until you got to Dayton, I-75 North. You found the Lincoln Highway, and then
04:36 there are several ways to get to Township Road number 30, where the farm
04:41 sat. And it was really, this is kind of a, this all kind of comes back. So when
04:46 you get closer to the farmhouse, you would actually kind of like slow the car
04:50 down. You guys remember this? And then you would turn on the gravel road, and I
04:55 still remember the sound of that gravel. Peace, family, it's like, oh, we got to the
05:03 farm. We get to see Grandma and Grandpa Bame and all the cousins, and so just a
05:08 neat sort of family full circle moment. Lots of thank yous. Student-athletes, are
05:14 you, is any student-athletes here? Is any student-athletes here? I don't know if
05:17 they could make it. Maybe there's a few that might be popping in and out. We've
05:21 got athletic staff, coaches, I can't wait to work with all of you. President
05:24 Carter, thank you so much for your leadership. The search committee, Mike
05:28 Eicher as the chair. Interacting with Archie Griffin and Clark Kellogg, two
05:35 legends, right, two Buckeye legends. Board of Trustees led by Hero Vujudi, really
05:43 thank you for his leadership. John Zeiger, Pierre, thank you for serving on the
05:48 search committee as well as a trustee member. Interact with Tom Matevsky and
05:52 his family this week. Also Jeff Kaplan and Alan Stockmeister, all trustee
05:56 members that I interacted with in the process. Tony Petitti, Big Ten
06:00 Commissioner, we have not had a chance to speak. We've been texting each other and
06:05 back and forth. He's in Big Ten meetings. Todd Turner, Collegiate Sports Associates,
06:08 he was persistent in calling me. Where is Katie Hall, Kim Lambert, and Anne
06:14 Garcia? I don't know if they're here, but the transition team here, it is
06:20 unbelievable. Like this has never been anything that we've ever experienced. So
06:25 Anne as general counsel and Kim and talent management and Katie in HR, thank
06:30 you all so much. I want to thank the Texas A&M leadership team. I appreciate
06:35 the Board of Regents, Chancellor John Sharp, but especially my boss, President
06:40 Mark Welsh. He's a special leader. The 12th Man Foundation Board, coaches, staff,
06:44 and the student-athletes at Texas A&M. The 12th Man is the real deal. They
06:49 care as much as any fan base in the country and our goal was to make Texas
06:53 A&M better than what we found it and I'm really proud of what we accomplished. To
06:58 my A&M friends and colleagues, especially head football coach Mike Elko. I get it.
07:04 The timing and all of this is not good. What we just went through and more
07:09 leadership turnover at Texas A&M, it's not ideal and I fully understand the
07:15 impact. Our family loves our time in Aggieland and we have special bonds that
07:19 will last a lifetime. It was an honor to work in the SEC for 12 years. I learned
07:23 so many great leadership lessons from Mike Slive, the late Mike Slive, and I
07:27 know Jean and Mike were close as well and since 2015, Commissioner Greg Sankey.
07:33 He's a true friend and a confidant and that friendship will not go away. I look
07:37 forward to really continuing to work together with the SEC to solve what lies
07:42 ahead. Mention family. So I know my mom got introduced and Uncle John and Aunt
07:49 Kathy. Aunt Kathy actually wrote me a Christmas note that I'm not going to
07:53 talk about yet but maybe that story will come out later. My sister Chris, her
07:58 fiance Bruce, my niece Maggie Hobson and DJ and his wife Devin. They were leaving
08:04 actually them behind in in Texas. The NACDA staff. Pat Manik, CEO, Jason
08:10 Golaska, what's your title now? Deputy CEO, whatever, and then Bob Vecchione. If you
08:15 guys would wave. I'm a product of NACDA and appreciate our National Association
08:19 of Collegiate Athletic Directors. Sonja and I met in January of 1999, 25 years
08:26 ago, later this month. We met at a restaurant. It was actually a bar in
08:31 Columbia, Missouri and she told me she's a Missouri girl and she's never leaving
08:36 and I said I'm gonna be an athletic director and I'm gonna move around and
08:38 if you heard my bio from President Carter I moved around a little bit and
08:42 so this needs to be it. Please, trustees, please, President Carter, please, let's be
08:49 done but Sonja is everything. I thank God every day for giving me her as my
08:56 partner in this journey. Peyton, I tried not to cry, okay. Peyton's a senior in
09:03 high school, A&M Consolidated High School, a football player. First team all
09:07 district. His team made the Elite Eight of the Texas high school playoffs. He
09:12 just signed to play football at Tarleton State in Stephenville, Texas. We actually
09:16 have his official visit this weekend there in Stephenville. He's a slot
09:21 receiver. He loves the game. He studies. He works. He focuses on the game. If you
09:26 guys ever want to blame me for a decision, I probably had some
09:29 consultation from Peyton. He grew up on the sidelines in the locker room. He
09:33 gives me all kinds of advice. If you ever see us do this, that's for Tarleton State.
09:39 If we ever wear a little bit of purple, that's their color. So Tarleton State
09:44 Texans will be in his future but thank you, Peyton. Paxton is our warrior. His
09:51 grit and competitive spirit is unmatched. Like this may be the hardest move on him.
09:56 He's going into eighth grade but his his talent and spirit will carry the day.
10:01 He's the best athlete in the family. Soccer, basketball, football, maybe a
10:06 little volleyball might be in his future but he also gets straight A's. So he
10:11 gives me advice on drip. So and then as this Ohio State thing was coming
10:17 together he said, "Dad, Ohio State has it all. It has it has something to do with
10:21 that Nike money." So he's a gearhead just like his older brother. So if we're not
10:27 at a Buckeye event, we're gonna be at Paxton's games being a parent and
10:32 cheering on him and his teammates and then Sonja is gonna probably be
10:37 traveling to watch Peyton play college football. So we're gonna be divide and
10:41 conquer for a little while but why are we here today? This goes down as one of
10:46 those trips that's really unexpected. It's part of the Bjork family journey
10:49 that we didn't see coming and as Sonja and I really kept looking at it, we
10:53 really took a lot of deep prayers, profound reflection on what is this
10:58 really all about and we kept coming back to this analysis. The bus for Ohio State
11:03 athletics only stops maybe once if any and we can't control that bus schedule.
11:09 We can't control when it pulls over and so the timing may not be ideal but the
11:15 stop is ideal for family and for family history and if one move could be
11:21 surrounded by all of this, this was it. Plus my mom Linda, if I would have told
11:27 her six months from now, yeah Ohio State called and I would have been disowned
11:31 from the family. So my mom made this come through but why else Ohio State? Compete
11:36 at the highest level. Be a leader in intercollegiate athletics in the future
11:41 of all of this, right? Embrace high expectations. That's why we looked at
11:47 this. The broad spectrum of responsibilities is not just athletics.
11:51 You're a leader in this community in a in a meaningful way and it's more than
11:55 just athletics. I respect Gene so much. I'll revere the honor of following him
11:59 and then live in a great city like Columbus. So at the end of the