Georgia Southern University on Monday took the next step toward its announced goal of moving up to play football at the Football Bowl Subdivision level when it named Tom Kleinlein as the school’s new athletic director.
Kleinlein comes to southeast Georgia from Kent State University in Kent, Ohio, where he was the deputy athletic director for two years and had been in charge of raising money for a football program that hadn’t won in 32 years.
He replaces Sam Baker, who spent 17 years in the job but resigned in July shortly after Georgia Southern President Brooks Keel announced the Eagles would look to move up to a higher level of competition.
Kleinlein, 42, beat out a field of more than 50 candidates who had been recruited and evaluated after a national search by an Atlanta-based firm. Keel said the field had been narrowed to eight candidates who were interviewed last week.
“Tom has a passion that’s palpable,” Keel said in announcing the appointment. “He articulates incredibly well, and he has an experience base that can build our vision.”
Kleinlein appears to be more than qualified for the job. He’s been involved with college athletics at several levels, including his time as a four-year letterman as an offensive lineman at Wake Forest. He’s been an academic counselor and assistant director for football operations at Wake Forest, had a similar gig at Rutgers and became associate athletic director for football at Arizona State.
In 2010, Kleinlein went to Kent State as a deputy athletic director and part of a team developed to implement a 10-year, $42.5 million athletic facility master plan.
At Georgia Southern, he inherits a $37 million project to upgrade its 14 athletics programs.
“First thing you have to do is get out and get in front of people,” Kleinlein said. “A lot of raising money is developing relationships, but it’s also educating people in what we’re trying to do and why we’re trying to get there.”
Georgia Southern already has become a major educational force in southeast Georgia, and Keel has made it clear he wants its athletic programs to have similar or higher stature. Now he has an executive in place to lead the way.
Good luck.