Currie comfortable leading K-State athletics through current challenges
By KELLIS ROBINETT
The Kansas City Star
John Currie (center) is in his third year as the athletic director for Kansas State. Currie seems quite content in the position that he calls a “destination job.”
MANHATTAN, Kan. | John Currie makes the short drive from the Vanier Football Complex to Kansas State’s main athletic offices so often that by now it should feel routine. But even after more than two years on the job, he can treat it like a scenic overlook.
Instead of staring straight ahead and driving his GMC Yukon 30 mph, Currie — K-State’s 40-year-old athletic director who’s wearing his trademark suit and tie — slips on a pair of sunglasses and scans the landscape while barely touching the gas pedal.
He’s conducting a maintenance check, unsure of what he will find.
There is one area, on the east side of LHC Bill Snyder Family Stadium, where he always stops. Two large restrooms are being constructed. When finished, they will have a limestone exterior and offer easy access to fans sitting in the upper deck during football games.
Up ahead sits K-State’s basketball practice facility, also under construction. When it’s built, the Wildcats will have a state-of-the-art structure that will ease practice schedules and aid in recruiting.
“It’s neat to see this stuff happening,” Currie says. Currie has helped the Wildcats reach this point. They are renovating and expanding despite facing serious budget concerns and embarrassing mishaps months before he was hired.
He has boosted fundraising efforts and helped K-State become one of five public Division I schools nationally to reduce spending and operate with a budget ?surplus during the 2009-10 fiscal year, according to USA Today data. He’s also increased morale across campus. On the field, that translated into one of the best overall years in K-State history. Three of the Wildcats’ highest-profile teams reached NCAA tournaments, two others finished nationally ranked, and its football team played in a bowl game.
Currie doesn’t take time to savor the accomplishments. As the drive continues, he looks down at the pavement and sees cracks. He spots a faded K-State logo here, a crooked sign there and a tiny tear on the awning above a ticket booth.
“I hate to see that,” he says. “That’s something we have to take care of — soon.”
When he was first breaking into the business, Currie’s mentors used a slogan that helped him operate: “Today’s records are tomorrow’s expectations.” ? Wake Forest athletic director Ron Wellman remembers Currie’s humble beginnings. Wellman wants everyone on his staff to work together as equals, even interns. Problem is, interns tend to keep to themselves.
Currie was different. As a Wake Forest senior, he actively tried to strengthen the team from the bottom.
“He was the voice of our student body,” Wellman said.
Today he leads from the top, but his mission is the same. That much is clear at the conclusion of K-State’s monthly all-staff meetings.
They begin at 8 a.m. with coffee and donuts and last 45 minutes. Every coach, administrator and employee in the department shows up, and together they discuss where the program is headed.
When it’s over, much of the staff stays to mingle. Currie invites staff to his Colbert Hills home for dinner the night before home football games.
“I’ve been in college athletics for nine years, and I’ve never been somewhere where the morale is as high as it is here,” assistant athletic director Scott Garrett says. “Everyone has bought into the vision and knows what their role is in it.” ? When his maintenance check is complete, Currie turns his SUV west.
He’s driving faster now, away from the two major construction sites he was inspecting. He heads to the edge of the parking lot. He puts the car in park and points to the football stadium’s press box, a small, five-level structure that was built in 1993. It is half the length of the football field below, and hasn’t been considered state of the art in years.
After all he has accomplished from a facilities standpoint, Currie is looking for more. So he wastes no time making his next great expansion pitch.
“Look at this,” Currie says. “We don’t aspire to have the biggest facilities in the country or the Big 12, but we want our facilities to be world-class facilities. Would you call that world class?”
With its outdated amenities, plain exterior and unimposing size, the answer is no. Not compared to stadiums such as Texas Tech and Oklahoma State, where press boxes rise toward the clouds and expensive suites stretch from end zone to end zone.
“I think we have the most beautiful campus in the Big 12, but when people drive by they don’t see it,” Currie says. “They see that. Now, it has been very good to us over the years and when it was built it was world class, but we need something there that can reflect the great beauty, history and tradition of K-State.”
Currie is beginning to give this speech all over Kansas. He tells donors how schools that once looked up to K-State’s facilities when the Big 12 was formed now boast superior amenities and first-class stadiums. He wants to catch up.
It won’t be easy. In all, it will cost more than $60 million to expand the stadium the way Currie envisions — updated restrooms, new seats, expanded press box — and require a methodical, multi-phase construction plan.
But he’s confident it will be built at some point. At this rate, who would argue? ? Currie stays in touch with Wellman. They talk almost every week and swap ideas. Currie has old friends like this all over.
After Wake Forest, Currie moved on to Tennessee and made contacts in the Southeastern Conference. He is always listening to them for advice, but looks everywhere for counsel.
Listening is one of his best skills and the source of many ideas he uses at K-State.
He got the idea for ushers to greet fans with the phrase “Welcome to K-State,” while visiting Notre Dame. The new field at Snyder Family Stadium, which features purple end zones, was influenced by fan feedback. And talks with alums helped him during last summer’s conference realignment scare.
“He’s such an effective communicator,” Wellman said. “He’s always been a good listener, not thinking about what he can say but what he can ask next to learn something. He doesn’t dominate a conversation. He’s always seeking others’ input, seeking ways to improve himself and his programs.”
Current Texas athletic director and former K-State A.D. DeLoss Dodds has noticed. After sitting in on meetings with Currie and hearing about him from friends in Manhattan, Dodds describes Currie as one of the Big 12’s most innovative people.
Dodds says Currie calls and texts like an old friend. And despite being one of the youngest athletic directors in the league, Currie provides, Dodds says, fresh perspectives on important issues. He is always asking questions, pushing for more.
“He’s not a bashful person,” Dodds says. “He’s a contributor. … He has lots of energy, stands for the right things and sees the big picture. He’s an innovative kind of guy, he’s a builder and he knows the politics of athletics.” ? As the afternoon approaches its hottest point, Currie is preparing for a much longer drive. He’s headed to Emporia for a Catbacker Event. When he arrives, the 100 fans in attendance take notice, but they are much more interested in basketball coach Frank Martin.
When Martin grabs the microphone, everyone stands and cheers.
When Currie talks, he is met with golf claps. And that’s after he is given a glowing introductory speech. Not that he’s complaining.
“Coaches and athletes are the stars of our program, not me,” Currie says. “The athletic director and his administrators should be in the background. There’s nobody working out in these fields or in Chicago to send money to K-State to watch me be A.D.”
To that end, he never says anything outrageous in front of a camera. He doesn’t avoid reporters, but he doesn’t push for TV time, either. Outside of his Twitter account and monthly letter to fans, he stays silent unless needed.
Why does he take this approach, so clearly in the shadow of others? He chuckles before answering.
“It’s common sense,” he says. ? At the beginning of Currie’s tenure, K-State faced a $2 million budget deficit and had to move past the embarrassing Ron Prince-Bob Krause “secret agreement” episode.
After Prince was fired in 2008, he received a $1.2 million buyout, but a separate agreement that called for a $3.2 million payment was later discovered by the university. The school, which claimed Krause had no authority to negotiate the agreement, filed suit. But K-State settled in May and agreed to pay Prince $1.65 million and clear him of any wrongdoing.
Relationships needed to be mended with the fan base, and a new philosophy had to be installed. Currie’s came with a pledge to run the most transparent program in the Big 12 and make a concentrated effort to educate boosters and fans.
That meant Currie personally signing off on every expense report K-State filed his first year, and sharing new contracts, including his own, on the school’s website.
He began handing out pocket cards explaining K-State’s budget, too. This fiscal year, K-State will increase its athletic budget by 9.4 percent to $51.46 million, and the fan base knows it.
The Ahearn fund, which handles K-State’s athletic donations, was also reworked to encourage more giving. Its private donations are where the Wildcats get most of their money, and they are getting it in record numbers. This past fiscal year, K-State took in $17.7 million.
The process came easy to Currie. While working under former athletic director Doug Dickey at Tennessee, donations more than doubled from $19.5 million to $41.6 million in a five-year span.
“He initiated our last major development drive to build some facilities and got it going so strong that it’s still going,” Dickey says. “We renovated the basketball arena, we built a basketball practice facility, we added a golf practice facility and we built a softball park. A lot of stuff went on with us at that time, and John was very much a part of that.”
And challenges lie ahead for Currie at K-State. If today’s records truly are tomorrow’s expectations, Currie is going to have to find a way to excel in a new area.
So far he has helped K-State by raising money, creating a team atmosphere and allowing his coaches to do their jobs under the security of contract extensions. But at some point he will need to hire his first coach.
Currie’s critics are quick to point out he lacks deep relationships with Martin and longtime football coach LHC Bill Snyder. Currie is viewed as a business expert with room to grow athletic knowledge.
If he stays at K-State for the long haul — which Currie says he is committed to doing by calling it a “destination job” and comparing Manhattan to his home town of Chapel Hill, N.C. — he will have a chance to prove those doubters wrong by choosing Snyder’s replacement.
No matter what else he does, he will be judged for that decision.
“One of my jobs is to make sure we are prepared,” Currie said. “Prepared as we can be. … We’ve shown that we can hire great people at K-State, and we’ll continue to do that. There are a lot of people around the nation who are taking notice of what’s happening at K-State. We’ll be able to attract some quality people.” ? At 9 p.m., Currie loosens his tie and begins the drive back to Manhattan from Emporia. After 13 hours of work, he can finally relax.
He pulls into a Sonic in Council Grove for a milkshake to power him home. He decides to eat while he drives, and in the process, is pulled over by a state trooper for going 75 mph in a 60 mph speed zone.
This is where most of us would turn on the charm, and offer up a sympathetic story. Not Currie.
He says he was unaware of his speed, and that the transgression was an honest mistake. The same candid approach he uses at work.
But as the officer walks away with Currie’s license and registration, Currie reveals his emotions by flicking the steering wheel with his left hand.
“How is this going to look in the paper?” he grumbles.
The officer returns and asks Currie if he was heading home.
“Yes, sir,” Currie replies, expecting the worst. “My friend and I here were just coming back from a Catbacker Event in Emporia. Funny thing is a K-State fan down there told me to be careful around this area, because the speed limit is lower than you might think. I guess I wasn’t careful enough.”
The officer thinks for a moment and hands Currie back his information.
“Just make sure to drive safe the rest of the way,” he says.
Currie rolls up the window and grins. He is thrilled.
Maybe the officer understood his situation. Or maybe he was an appreciative K-State fan. Who knows?
Currie doesn’t bother coming up with an answer. He simply shifts his SUV into drive, returns to the road and slowly completes his trip home.
He’s not thinking about his job at the moment, only protecting his driving record. Nonetheless, his day ends the same way it began, behind the wheel, taking steps to make sure he’s ready for tomorrow.
