Toledo's Mike O'Brien Named To NCAA Men's Basketball Committee
MIKE O’BRIEN NAMED TO NCAA MEN’S BASKETBALL COMMITTEE
Toledo’s Vice President and Athletic Director to replace Ohio’s Jim Schaus
Cleveland, Ohio – University of Toledo Vice President and Director of Athletics, Mike O’Brien, has been appointed to the Division I Men’s Basketball Committee, replacing Ohio University Athletic Director Jim Schaus the NCAA announced today. O’Brien will replace Schaus, who just finished his third year on the committee and is resigning to spend more time on campus. O’Brien will serve the remaining two years on Schaus’ original five-year appointment, which began in 2015.
O’Brien, who was an assistant basketball coach for three seasons in the mid-1980s, has a master’s degree in education from the University of Wisconsin-River Falls and another in sports administration from Western Illinois University. A 1975 graduate of Missouri Valley College, the Iowa City, Iowa native held athletic administration positions at Ball State University, the University of Pittsburgh, Lamar University and Kansas State University before being named to his current role in 2002.
“I am deeply honored to be appointed to represent the University of Toledo and the Mid-American Conference as a member of the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Committee,” said O’Brien. “I am humbled and grateful for the opportunity to join the tremendous group of people who serve on this very important committee. I especially want to thank the NCAA’s senior vice president for basketball, Dan Gavitt, for this opportunity. I began my career in athletics as a basketball coach, so it is very exciting and gratifying for me to be a part of the committee that selects the field for one of the greatest sporting events in the world, the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship.”
O’Brien has extensive experience with various NCAA committees, having served on the Competition Oversight Committee and the Division I Football Issues Committee. He currently is a member of the NCAA Division I Council and the Women’s Basketball Oversight Committee and has served as the Mid-American Conference’s representative to the College Football Playoff Committee.
O’Brien is in his 17th year as the athletic director at Toledo. During his tenure, he has helped shape the Rockets Athletics program into one of the very best in the MAC. His tenure has seen unprecedented athletic and academic achievements of Toledo’s student-athletes, as well as numerous ambitious capital projects that have elevated Toledo’s status as one of the top mid-major athletic programs in the country.
Under O’Brien’s watch, the Rockets have won or shared 33 league titles in nine different sports, including championships in football and women’s soccer last season. The Rockets have won the Jacoby Trophy as the MAC’s top women’s athletic program twice in O’Brien’s reign, in 2011-12 and 2017-18.
In the classroom, Toledo has produced overall department grade-point averages above a 3.2 in each of the past seven semesters, and above a 3.1 in the past 19 consecutive semesters. Rocket student-athletes had a combined GPA of 3.266 in 2017-18, including a school-record 3.290 in the 2017 fall semester. Toledo women’s athletes won the MAC’s Faculty Athletic Representatives Award for the highest combined GPA in 2017-18. Toledo has won the MAC Institutional Academic Achievement Award, presented annually to the school with the highest grade point average, in four of the last six years. In 2011-12, Toledo won the Cartwright Award, given annually to the MAC athletic program with the highest degree of excellence in academics, athletics and citizenship.
Capital projects secured during O’Brien’s tenure include the Charles A. Sullivan Athletic Complex construction and Savage Arena renovation project (2008); Fetterman Training Center construction (2010); Glass Bowl and Larimer Athletic Complex renovations (2016); as well as updates to soccer (2004), tennis (2006) and track & field (2010).
“We’re pleased to welcome Mike O’Brien to the men’s basketball committee,” said Dan Gavitt, the NCAA’s senior vice president for basketball. “Mike is highly respected by his peers as an athletic director with a long tenure at Toledo and a deep history of NCAA committee service. Having started his career as a college assistant basketball coach, Mike has great passion and feel for the game.
“I also want to acknowledge and thank Jim Schaus for his dedication and service on the men’s basketball committee for the past three years. Jim’s thoughtful approach to every decision with which the committee was faced was inspiring to all those who served with him. We’ll certainly miss him. We understand that the men and women on this committee have incredibly important roles on their campuses and at their conference offices. Obviously, those must take priority and we are respectful of that.”
O’Brien will be joined on the committee by chair Bernard Muir of Stanford, vice chair Kevin White of Duke, Janet Cone of UNC Asheville, Mitch Barnhart of Kentucky, Craig Thompson of the Mountain West Conference, Jim Phillips of Northwestern, Tom Burnett of the Southland Conference, Bernadette McGlade of the Atlantic 10 Conference and Chris Reynolds of Bradley.
