Charlie Cobb will be introduced as Georgia State’s athletic director Friday.
A news conference is scheduled at 10 a.m. at Centennial Hall on campus. Cobb hasn’t returned a text message. GSU President Mark Becker said he would wait until Friday to make a comment.
Cobb’s base salary will be $300,000, with potential bonuses for academic and athletic achievements, according to the university. He signed a five-year contract with an option for an additional two years.
Cobb has spent the past nine years as athletic director at Appalachian State, where he has led $50 million in facilities upgrades.
He has family in Atlanta and worked for the Atlanta Sports Council, the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl and the Georgia Dome in the 1990s. He is a 1990 graduate of N.C. State, where he played football.
“Georgia State has hired someone that’s very qualified, knows Atlanta, has good connections in the city and did a great job of growing Appalachian State’s department and will do the same at Georgia State,” said Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl President Gary Stokan, who was Cobb’s boss for a short time.
“I look forward to working with him.”
Cobb will replace Cheryl Levick, who after five years transitioned to a new role as special assistant to Becker.
“It’s a home run for Georgia State,” Sun Belt commissioner Karl Benson said. “He’s dynamic, and he may be one of the smartest AD’s I’ve ever been around.”
Cobb’s background as fundraiser, manager and leader would seem to satisfies Becker’s desire, stated Tuesday, to hire someone who has “a track record of success both externally and internally.”
All of his experience will be necessary.
Georgia State is in the process of raising $2.5 million to build a strength-and-conditioning facility for football, $5.5 million for a sports-performance center and $3.875 million for an academic-performance center.
But the $300 million Turner Field proposal may be the crown jewel in the job, according to Benson.
Georgia State and private partners would like to purchase Turner Field and the surrounding property and turn it into a mixed-use sports-and-retail complex, with the stadium possibly repurposed into a new home for the university’s football team. A new baseball stadium would be constructed for the Panthers, and dorms and other shops would be built.
“Charlie’s the perfect guy, should the Turner Field project go forward,” Benson said.
In addition to leading the Mountaineers from the FCS level, where they were a three-time national champion in football, this year to the Sun Belt Conference and the FBS level, Cobb’s bio on the school’s website notes several other accomplishments that could help Georgia State if they can be even partially replicated:
- A 298-percent increase in football season-ticket sales.
- Nine consecutive Commissioner's Cup championships, which recognizes the top men's sports program in the Southern Conference.
- Four Germann Cup championships, which recognizes the top overall women's sports program in the Southern Conference.
- Thirty-five percent of the student-athletes made the academic honor roll (minimum GPA of 3.25).
- Seven of 20 varsity programs earned public-recognition awards in Academic Progress Rate scores.
- Fundraising records were set every year for the past eight years. Donations, which never topped $700,000 before Cobb's arrival, surpassed $3 million each of the past two years.
Between working in Atlanta and at Appalachian State, Cobb was an associate athletic director at N.C. State, where he supervised marketing, ticket operations and media relations, among other things.
Among the finalists were Middle Tennessee’s Chris Massaro, Missouri’s Doug Gillin and Southern Illinois’ Mario Moccia.
