Mark Alnutt was named the director of athletics at Southeast Missouri State University in 2012 after serving as the senior associate athletics director at the University of Missouri, where he was a three-year letterman for the football team from 1993-95. As athletic director, Southeast has won six conference championships and the student-athletes have a combined grade point average of over 3.1 in the fall and spring semester each year.
What led you to become the athletic director at Southeast?
I'll tell you what, it goes back to my experience as a student-athlete at the University of Missouri. I was fortunate enough to play football there and I always say this, after I graduated I missed that environment, that culture. So I went back to the University of Missouri and I was able to slowly but surely get back in the athletic department, starting as a graduate assistant for the football program. When you started where I started, usually that route was to try to get into coaching, as a graduate assistant for the football program. In that position, I was able to be mentored by the director of football operations. His name was Mike McHugh, he's still in the business doing this and really what he taught me was how everything worked.
As a student-athlete, you know what time to be someplace, where you're going to go, when you're leaving, whatever the case might be, but you really don't understand the how. ... So throughout my graduate assistantship I learned how everything is put together because the athletic department is comprised of so many different entities. You have your business department, you have your compliance office, you have your marketing, your fundraising, your sports information and the list goes on and on. I was eventually able to learn that aspect of it, and then slowly but surely climb that ladder from an administrative standpoint to where I grasped hold of even more of that understanding and when the opportunity was right and I felt I was prepared, this opportunity came about and, almost three years later, I'm here.
What major challenges and problems come with being the athletic director and how do you overcome them?
Well at this level and essentially any level, one of the challenges that you have is resources first and foremost. What I strive to do is, what we try to do is provide that first-class experience for our student-athletes. Regardless if you're playing at Houck in front of 5,000 people for a football game or you're playing you-name-the-stadium in front of 80,000 people, it's all about that experience. Certain challenges make sure you're providing enough for your student-athletes number one. The second thing, make sure you provide enough for your coaches and your staff to be successful. Not, again, only on the field in terms of wins and losses but again being able to provide that first-class experience. So from a resource standpoint there's a lot in it and a lot of tough decisions that have to be made. Obviously fundraising is very important, trying to have the community and this region involved is also an aspect of that, but a challenge for any athletic director is being able to acquire the sufficient resources to be successful.
What would you say you are most proud of with this athletic department?
Just the continued growth. You look at this past calendar year, 2014, and there's so many achievements that the athletic department has achieved. First I look at it from a GPA standpoint, very high and academically sound. Overall cumulative GPA of a 3.1 GPA with 13 out of our 15 programs accumulating a 3.0 GPA or higher and even the two that did not achieve that, football for example, they still had their highest GPA in the spring of 2014, which is good. And also basketball had a very high GPA as compared to where they've been in the past, so I'm very proud of that. So when you look at, I talk about community involvement and getting our brand out there and from a community service standpoint, your student-athletes accumulated over 3,500 hours of community service. ... What that means for us is that it pays back dividends because people will know that we actually care and we're a part of the community, I think that's very important. From a competitive successful standpoint, we had six championships in the calendar year of 2014. So when you look at that aspect from where we were when I first got here to this past year, that's something that you can definitely have some pride in.
What leadership skills does it take to be an athletic director?
Well, [laughs] multiple. Obviously because there's so many different constituency groups that you relate with. People think automatically, "Well there's student-athletes and coaches," but outside of that you have the rest of campus and campus leadership, the students on campus, the community that has to be involved, community leaders. You have your donors, your season ticket holders, your fans. ... So from a leadership quality standpoint, you have to be multifaceted.
The first thing you have to look at, too, is when I first arrived here is, you have to listen. ... You can't come here and say, "Well I want to do this, this and this," and not understand and knowing the culture and the history. You have to listen and then what you need to do that is very important as a leader, once you formulate a vision you have to have buy in from your staff. It can't be Mark Alnutt wants to do this, we all want to do this. So one thing that is very important is what I call situational leadership. There are times when you have to be the democratic leader in terms of involving so much input from people around you that might have more experience. For example, having more knowledge in a particular area and empower them to make the decision, which ultimately I'll approve or disapprove. ... But when they have that type of buy in from the empowerment that you give them, that's pretty effective. Then other times to when I say situational leadership, there might have to be some of that authoritarian, that, "Hey, we need to do this now," whatever the case might be depending on the situation. So again, I look at it as it's multifaceted, multi-level, but at the end of the day you have to be in a position to formulate a vision and then be in a position to help your people carry out that vision with complete buy in.
What is a mistake that you have noticed some leaders make more frequently than others?
The lack of communication. I think communication is something that is very important for a leader to have. It's easy to communicate the good news, it's easy to communicate the great news but sometimes the bad news, people are naturally pleasers and also naturally they tend to avoid conflict. A lot of times when there is an issue, it's better to explain it or better to communicate that people needed it communicated to initially. That's going to soften the blow rather than trying to cover it up or waiting down the road hoping it might go away and then delivering the news which it might be so far down stream so to speak that you might not be able to recover from it. When you look at the news today of other leaders, a lot of times it's just due to the lack of effective communication.
How are you continuing to grow as a leader each day?
Professional development is very important to me, and also I want our staff and our coaches to continue to learn. "Always learn" is something that I always say because you can never stop learning. I'll attend the conferences, the conventions, whatever the case might be. I'm quick to volunteer my time and services to be on committees. Right now I'm currently on two NCAA committees and it's not about me, I feel very privileged to be able to represent Southeast Missouri State University and also the Ohio Valley Conference.
I'm on the NCAA Football Rules Committee and I'll be in Indianapolis here in three weeks discussing possible rule changes for the upcoming football season for all of Division I Football, which I think is very important. I'm also in the Minority Opportunities and Interests Committee, that's part of the NCAA as well and again that's a committee that focuses on the advancement of opportunities for underrepresented folks that are in the NCAA -- may it be students or staff, coaches, whatever the case might be. So when you have those type of opportunities you continue to grow as a leader, but something as simple as when I go on away trips with our teams or I meet them. For example, this weekend I will go to UT Martin to help support both our men's and women's basketball programs down there. But while I'm down there, I'll stop and chat with their athletic director Julio Freire and we might chat about the new autonomy that's out there with NCAA in terms of cost of attendance, or when I'm at these games I might look at how they're particularly marketing the game in terms of whatever they're doing during timeouts or concessions, whatever the case might be -- if they have a video board, what's actually running from a sponsorship standpoint. So those are the types of opportunities that I have the opportunity to learn as well and develop more as a leader.
