GSU AD getting job done

Levick joined the frenzied race in March 2009, 17 months ago, when she left her job as chief of staff of Maryland's athletic department to take over at Georgia State. At that point, she likes to say, the team consisted of one player, two helmets and seven coaches.

The school did not have a practice field for the freshmen who were to arrive five months later, nor a locker room or suitable sports medicine facility. Support staff, equipment and infrastructure still needed to be tackled. If the project didn't have to be rushed, Levick said last week, it should have taken another six months.

However, the task has been all but completed, and it comes as little surprise to those who know her. Coach Bill Curry called Levick's problem-solving acumen and accountability inspiring.

"I'm just talking about pure business efficiency, being a leader that's attentive to a highly complex mechanism that's trying to get off the ground," he said.

The days have been long and not without myriad obstacles. But for Levick, overseeing the creation of a football team and re-making the athletic department have put her in her element.

"I'm able to combine my organizational skills with [my] competitiveness," she said. "It's a perfect combination. This job allows me to be me."

After graduating from Missouri in 1974, Levick coached high school gymnastics in her native St. Louis. She soon decided to make the move to college athletics administration, earning a master's at Indiana.

In time she had posts at NCAA headquarters and then the Pac-10. She left the Pac-10 for Stanford in 1988, working for 12 years as the No. 2 in arguably the NCAA's premier athletic department. From there, she held the top jobs at Santa Clara and then St. Louis universities.

However, neither Santa Clara nor St. Louis has football. Levick, who grew up a fan of the football Cardinals, married a Missouri football player and bonded with legendary coach Bill Walsh at Stanford, felt the game's tug. She left her hometown to become the chief of staff at Maryland, working two years there before taking the GSU job.

Levick took over for Curry, who was serving as interim athletic director following Mary McElroy's dismissal in Dec. 2008. Levick and Curry's shared a philosophy about the purpose of college sports, and their hard-driving personalities have made them lockstep partners and powerful allies in the department and university.

"She's demanding," Curry said. "I've never known a great leader that wasn't."

Levick and her staff, notably senior associate AD's James Greenwell, Kosha Irby and Todd Reeser, form what she calls "the team behind the huddle." When she arrived, the most pressing issues were securing a temporary practice field and finding the space on campus for a locker room and weight room for the fall of 2009.

Hired in May 2009, Greenwell oversaw the conversion of a neglected aquatics building next door to the school's arena into a locker room, equipment storage area, training room and weight room in about six weeks.

The construction of the permanent practice field was completed before spring practice earlier this year. In time, the property will house the football team and the space in the aquatics building will be converted into a volleyball arena.

The volleyball court is part of the strategic plan Levick is developing for the department, a comprehensive vision that has helped assuage fears of coaches initially leery of football's arrival. Raising the budgets for the school's 18 teams – made possible by increases of student fees and enrollment – has helped, also. The budget for fiscal year 2011 is $19.5 million, about $4.6 million more than the previous year. Football accounts for $4.5 million of the budget.

"I think the changes are tremendous," said women's golf coach Cathy Mant, who has been at the school since 2000. Her budget has nearly doubled in five years. "There's just a whole new attitude and atmosphere."

Levick has worked quickly. In her first 17 months, 22 new staffers have been hired on the administration side of the department, inflating the staff to about 150 employees. The hires range from trainers to the three senior associate directors whom she calls her "cabinet."

Levick set a goal for each team to be among the top three in the Colonial Athletic Association, a league based largely in the mid-Atlantic with schools such as Delaware, Hofstra and William & Mary. She has not been shy about attempting to hasten the process.

Levick has replaced head coaches for six of the 18 Georgia State teams since arriving in March 2009, though not all were dismissals. Levick did not intend to make moves in her first year, but, she said, "It's also my job to make sure that the right leadership" is in place.

Said Mant, "I think the expectations have increased."

It's football, though, that has Levick's attention.

Since arriving in March 2009, Levick and her staff have been grinding to make the deadline of the Sept. 2 kickoff. The department's offices on Decatur Street in downtown Atlanta are normally empty between 1 and 4 a.m.. But every other hour of the day, someone's working on something, Levick said.

There is little doubt who sets that tone.

"I’m not sure I would describe myself as creative," Levick said. "I just know that I love putting pieces together."