Dr. Connor Smith named UNT Athletics Associate VP and COO

[Coach Andy Mac]

DENTON, Texas – Accomplished athletics administrator Dr. Connor Smith has been named UNT Athletics’ new Associate Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Vice President and Director of Athletics Jared Mosley announced Tuesday.

“I’m excited to welcome Connor, his wife Cami and their daughters Coraleigh and Copelynn to the Mean Green family!” Mosley said. “Connor brings a wealth of leadership experience that will serve our student-athletes, coaches and staff well as we transition into the American Athletic Conference and continue to build on the momentum we have within our programs.  He is highly respected across the industry and will be a great resource for us here at UNT.”

Smith, who joins the Mean Green following a stellar eight-plus years as Director of Athletics at Dallas Baptist University, fills the position vacated by Mosley when he was promoted into his new role by UNT president Neal Smatresk on December 10.

“I am thrilled and honored to join Jared Mosley, UNT Athletics, and the entire Mean Green family,” Smith said. “I look forward to serving and working alongside the incredible student-athletes, coaches, staff, and community as we strive to Build Champions and Prepare Leaders. The future is incredibly bright for the Mean Green, and I can't wait to get to work in Denton, Texas.”

A native of Cedar Park, Texas, Smith was named Director of Athletics at DBU in June 2014. He was promoted to Vice President and Director of Athletics in November 2022.

During Smith's tenure as the program's Director of Athletics, DBU won its first NCAA Division II National Championship when the women's golf team captured a national title in 2021. The Patriots also won 47 conference championships, advanced to seven NCAA Division I Regional appearances in baseball, including one Super Regional appearance in 2021, 21 NCAA Division II National Championship appearances, one NCAA DII Final Four appearance in women's soccer, and became one of just seven men’s basketball programs in the country to reach five consecutive NCAA DII tournaments. Additionally, the DBU Cheer and Dance programs both captured back-to-back National Championships (NCA and NDA) during the 2022 competitive season. 

At the conclusion of the spring 2022 semester, DBU Athletics earned a 3.4 cumulative grade point average across each of the NCAA varsity athletics programs, which marked the second highest average GPA in department history. A few of the additional academic honors for DBU Athletics during Smith's tenure as Director of Athletics included a baseball program record for NCAA Academic Progress Rate (APR), Women's Academic Award of Excellence, NCAA President's Award of Excellence for an Academic Success Rate of 90% (earned in back-to-back years) and the Heartland Academic Award of Excellence.

Additionally, Smith and the Patriots launched Patriots Prepared during the 2019-2020 academic year with leadership programming that prepares and equips student-athletes for life and their professional careers after graduation. Furthermore, Patriots Prepared helped provide networking opportunities for internships, employment, and aids with NIL education for DBU student-athletes.

Under Smith's leadership, Patriot Athletics experienced unprecedented growth in revenue generation, corporate sponsorships, and fundraising. In March of 2019, Smith and DBU Athletics launched the Patriot Athletic Fund, the departments first-ever annual fund and department-wide booster program to support and advance all 25 intercollegiate athletics programs. During Smith's first year as athletic director, Patriot Baseball introduced a new booster fund program called the Dugout Club with the goal to advance the University's sole NCAA Division I program. Since its inception, the Dugout Club has experienced consistent growth and membership for the university's Division I baseball program.

Growth was a constant theme under Smith's leadership as DBU Athletics continued to provide new opportunities for student-athletes through new sport additions. From 2014-22, the Patriots added six new sport programs and increased the total number of student-athletes from 301 student-athletes to 449. He also played an integral role in the development and completion of more than 15 capital campaign projects and facility renovations during his time with Patriot Athletics in addition to guiding the department through a pair of conference transitions joining the Lone Star Conference in 2019 and baseball competing in Conference USA in 2023.

Smith was also instrumental in the launch of the Patriot Broadcasting Network, the department’s sports broadcast and streaming platform. He oversaw the negotiation of DBU’s first-ever television agreement with Bally Sports Southwest to televise multiple baseball games and a full DBU Athletics rebranding project which produced three new athletics marks along with a multi-year agreement with brand management and licensing partner IMG College Licensing (IMGCL); the first-ever athletics ticketing platform and website, DBUTickets.com.

Smith has previously served on the Division II Athletics Directors Association (D2ADA) Board of Directors, the NCAA DII Regulatory Affairs Committee, was a mentor in the D2ADA Mentoring Program, and on the NCAA DII Volleyball and Women's Golf Regional Advisory Committees. Smith is also a past Chair for the Lone Star Conference Council of Athletics Administrators as well as an advisory board member for the sport of STUNT, the YMCA Grand Prairie, and AD's for Christ. Smith is a member of the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA) as well as the National Association of Athletic Development Directors (NAADD).

He was a four-year letterman for the DBU Golf team from 2005-09 and served as the team captain in his junior and senior seasons. Following his playing career, Smith served as the team's Graduate Assistant Golf Coach in 2009. He got his start in collegiate athletics as Assistant AD for Internal Operations at DBU from 2011-13.

Smith earned a pair of degrees from Dallas Baptist with a Bachelor of Business Administration in Business Management from in December 2009 and a Master of Business Administration with an emphasis in Project Management in December 2011. He completed his Doctor of Education in Higher Educational Leadership from TCU in November 2022.

Smith and his wife, Cami, have two daughters, Coraleigh and Copelynn.

https://dbupatriots.com/staff-directory/connor-smith/47

 

Edited Tuesday at 04:15 PM by Coach Andy Mac

[DentonLurker]

Those of you wanting to add Baseball, this should be your knight in shining armor.

[meanrob]

No shade on him but damn, these position titles. 

[meangreenfaninno]

Baseball here we come!  Very exciting news for @Doug Rush and others on the board.

[MGNation92]

Baseball would be nice, but it's not more important than improving our current facilities/sports to compete as soon as possible in the American.

I hope we get baseball too, but let's be real about the timeline of when that's actually gonna happen. 

Looks like Dr. Smith has some fundraising chops, so lets hope he hits the ground running at UNT to make these improvements as quickly as possible.

[UNT Texas Hooligan]

Looks very accomplished. Especially with fundraising. Excited about this

[SilverEagle]

This is the second administrator that has been hired from a lower classification school. Jared Mosley's experience was at Abilene Christian, where he was VERY successful at fund raising. Dr. Smith seems to have been successful at fund raising at a much smaller school. 

In both cases I'm assuming they had to work harder (and I assume smarter) and with fewer resources to become successful. My experience has been that those type people don't make up excuses for not being successful and reaching their goals. 

I could be wrong, but I am anticipating a significant culture change regarding how the athletic department is going to be run.

Edited Wednesday at 03:09 PM by SilverEagle

[UNT Texas Hooligan]

4 minutes ago, SilverEagle said:

This is the second administrator that has been hired from a lower classification school. Jared Mosley's experience was at Abilene Christian, where he was VERY successful at fund raising. Dr. Smith seems to have been successful at fund raising at a much small school. 

In both cases I'm assuming they had to work harder (and I assume smarter) and with fewer resources to become successful. My experience has been that those type people don't make up excuses for not being successful and reaching their goals. 

I could be wrong, but I am anticipating a significant culture change regarding how the athletic department is going to be run.

Very true. Mosley mentioned this a lot in his interview with #GMGCast

[untphd]

1 hour ago, meanrob said:

No shade on him but damn, these position titles. 

I was kind of thinking the same thing, but banks do it all the time.

[97and03]

Experienced but not exactly a wide range of experience. Player, GA, asst AD, then AD - all at DBU. 

[MGNation92]

19 hours ago, 97and03 said:

Experienced but not exactly a wide range of experience. Player, GA, asst AD, then AD - all at DBU. 

Almost the exact same trajectory as Mosley. Player, GA, Asst AD, then AD - all at ACU. 

[Doug Rush]

This is an exciting hire for meangreenbaseball.com  and the mean green baseball project.  Our group is fully invested in getting this athletics center built and then forging ahead with baseball and all the other improvements to existing sports.  

 

[Big Z]

How about adding a GMG board of directors?