Dec. 21, 2009

By Mandrallius Robinson, The Greenville News

GREENVILLE, S.C. -- Football got Rod Smolla in the door at Yale University. Everything he did off the field after that got him in the door at Furman University.

Smolla was recruited to Yale in 1972. He injured a knee in his first season, ending his career. Yet, Smolla earned his bachelor's degree from Yale in 1975, then graduated first in his class from Duke Law School in 1978. He practiced law in Chicago before entering academia and developing a resume that rivals the transcript of a Strom Thurmond filibuster.

On Tuesday, Smolla was introduced as Furman's new president. On July 1, Smolla, currently Dean of the School of Law at Washington and Lee University, will take over for Dr. David Shi, also a former football player, who will retire after 16 years at Furman's helm.

As a lawyer, author and scholar, Smolla has advocated for various causes in federal courts and countless publications. One of his newest causes as Furman's president is the Paladins' athletic program, specifically the football team that offers young men the same opportunity he was given: the opportunity to earn a first-class education. Related

"Furman has already proven that it's a great example of how to do things right with scholar athletes," Smolla said. "We have a wonderful athletic tradition that blends in very well with our academic mission. I'm proud of the school in striking that balance. I'm going to be a person who champions the athletic program and works with the faculty, administration and athletic officials to constantly strike the right balance.

"It's one of the natural tension points that will always exist at schools with very strong academic programs like Furman. Nobody believes that it is appropriate to compromise academic integrity in your admissions process. At the same time, the admissions process can take into account the many talents that different students bring to the university.

"That may be talent in music. It may be talent in art. It may be talent in science. It may be talent in athletics. All of that is appropriately taken into the mix.

"My own story is an example of that. It was sports that gave me the entree to Yale. That story gets repeated all the time for young men and women at Furman and at other very strong universities around the country."

Furman football coach Bobby Lamb concedes that maintaining strict academic standards handicaps schools like Furman in the recruiting race against less selective schools in the Southern Conference and in the NCAA Football Championship Subdivision. According to The College Board, 59 percent of Furman freshmen, including athletes, were ranked in the top tenth of their high school graduating class. Only 23 percent of freshmen rank that highly at Appalachian State, the program that has won the last five SoCon football championships.

Although those figures are certainly not the tell-all of the admission process of either school, they do reveal the type of student Furman must pursue. Aside from adjusting the admissions process or adding academic exemptions, one way to overcome the discrepancy, Lamb asserted, is to simply resize the recruiting pool from which Furman draws its talent.

"It certainly changes the landscape of what we do," Lamb said. "Our academic requirements are such that we've got to expand our boundaries a little bit. We've got to be creative about going out because it's getting so much more competitive. Related

"We've got to keep recruiting the true student-athletes. We've done a good job of that, going to get those that know that academics is the most important thing and that winning championships is right behind that.

"We combine those two better than anybody in the country,'' Lamb said. "I'll put our 30-year graduation rate and our 30-year win rate against anybody in the country - Duke, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame, Stanford - it doesn't matter."

According to the NCAA, Furman recorded a graduation success rate of 96 percent from 2006-09, best in the SoCon. Since 2000, Furman has posted a win-loss record of 80-37, which ranks second in the conference behind Appalachian and seventh in the FCS.

Before taking his post at Washington and Lee, Smolla served as Dean of the T.C. Williams School of Law at the University of Richmond, a program he said mirrors Furman in the academic-athletic balance. The Spiders achieved a graduation success rate of 90 percent in 2009 and made five playoff appearances from 1998-2008, winning the national championship last season.

Although the Paladins have missed the playoffs the past three seasons, Furman has the potential to make a similar run, Smolla asserted. Yet, he does not plan to bring in any new policy or strategy from his experience at Richmond, only his commitment to be the head cheerleader.

"I had a very good relationship with the athletic director at Richmond and with many of the coaches," he said. "I have expressed to the athletic director and many of the coaches at Furman that I will be an enthusiastic supporter of the program. I will enjoy stopping by and talking to the teams in practices from time to time. I will make it to games, and when I'm at games, I'll make it a point to be visible so that fans can see that it matters to us and to our family. I won't just be a behind-the-scenes supporter."

Smolla said he plans to spread his enthusiasm throughout the entire program, in hopes that his installation as Furman's 11th president can coincide with the Paladins reinstallation as first on the field.

"Furman has already demonstrated that it knows how to do things very, very well. It's got a wonderful record of great successes in athletics," Smolla added. "In every sport, you are going to have ups and downs in your programs. That's just the natural cycle of what teams go through. What I do know is that it matters a lot when the administration is an enthusiastic supporter of the athletic program. That's the one thing I can and will bring."