Nearly 18 months ago, Julie Owen took over at the University of Mississippi as its new senior associate athletics director for compliance. It wasn’t the way she wanted the promotion. She had been a long-time co-worker with her predecessor, even when the two were at the University of Oklahoma.
But regardless of the circumstances, talent rises to the top. And this was the case with Owen, who joined Ole Miss in 2011 as associate athletics director for compliance.
A 2000 graduate of Colorado College with a bachelor’s degree in Economics, Owen also holds a master’s degree in business administration and a master’s degree in sports administration from Ohio University. In addition, Owen earned a juris doctorate from the University of Denver.
She began her compliance career with an internship at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay in 2006 while in law school. She served as the director of compliance at Wright State University from 2007 until moving to Oklahoma in April 2008.
Question: Did you participate in athletics in high school? If so, in what capacity?
Answer: I did participate in high school athletics. At the varsity level, I played basketball and soccer.
Q: Having a master’s degree in both business administration, and one in sports administration, one would think there’s a lot of overlap. Why did you pursue both?
A: Honestly, there was not actually a lot of overlap with the program I completed. My master’s degrees are from Ohio University through their dual MBA/MSA degree program. As a result, the first year of the program was primarily the MBA curriculum. The MBA program used a problem-based learning system where we did a lot of collaborative projects that focused on accounting, finance and management-type topics. The second year was exclusively sports administration classes which, for me, were more focused on specific issues related to college athletics like fundraising, human resources and governance.
I pursued the dual degree program at Ohio University for a couple of reasons. First, I believed it would be beneficial to have the business education that came with an MBA as I pursued a career in college athletics. Athletics programs operate similar to independent business entities in many regards, so having a business background helps in that realm. Additionally, the sports administration program at Ohio University was specifically interesting to me because it was the oldest sports administration program in the country and had an excellent reputation for graduating individuals who were highly successful in the industry.
Q: How did law school prepare you for a career in athletics, and specifically compliance?
A: Law school was incredibly beneficial in preparing me to work in compliance. The level of preparation and self-confidence necessary to succeed in the Socratic teaching method employed by many law schools helped prepare me for handling challenging situations. I also think the time management skills needed to survive law school are invaluable to balancing the daily compliance tasks, as well as unexpected issues that arise and long-term planning for the office.
Law school also helped me develop my analytical and communication skills. In some respects, analyzing a legal situation is a lot like answering interpretive questions. There is a bylaw, some precedent and a set of facts, so the analytical process mirrors that of looking at a statute, case precedent and a set of facts in the legal setting. Further, being effective in both arenas requires analyzing questions from various viewpoints. Most importantly, communication is just as important in compliance as it was in law school, both in the written form for multiple audiences, as well as verbally.
Q: Who have been some of your mentors along the way?
A: I have been fortunate to have had people help me at various stages of my career. At the beginning of my career, Dan Rohrer (Assistant Athletics Director for Academic Services at Wisconsin) and Leslie Fields (Director of Compliance at Xavier University) were invaluable as I started my first full-time compliance position. As I continued in my career, Toby Baldwin and Jason Leonard at the University of Oklahoma were instrumental in my growth toward reaching the point I am currently. Beyond those individuals, I consider myself to be very fortunate to have a number of people across the country I can call and talk to about various situations and bounce ideas off of today.
Q: What are the key ingredients about running a successful compliance department?
A: Running a successful compliance department is probably not a whole lot different than being successful in any other industry. Relationships are important, from sport staffs to student-athletes to campus partners. Communication is critical; both internally for a larger compliance office such as ours, and externally with other departments that are part of the operation of an athletics department. We have to be open-minded and have a desire to keep learning and evolving as rules, the college athletics landscape and technology changes. Technically, compliance professionals need a high level of attention to detail. In a competitive and pressure-driven environment it is helpful to remember your sense of humor too!
Q: What is the best part of your job?
A: There are probably two parts of my job that are my favorite. I love the problem-solving opportunities that exist. There can be some monotony in the day-to-day of compliance, but I enjoy when there is a unique question, a challenging waiver scenario or even an individual student-athlete’s dilemma we can help problem-solve to reach a solution that is beneficial to those involved. I also very much enjoy working with younger professionals and helping them to learn and grow within the industry.
Q: What is the most challenging?
A: Like with everything, there are challenges to working in compliance. I think one of those challenges is fighting the perception of the role of compliance. I bristle at the police comparison because that is not how I view our role within an athletics department. While there is an enforcement piece to the compliance role, my view is that we are a service-oriented office that assists individuals in navigating a complex set of regulations in order to accomplish their goals.
The other challenging part is that the landscape of college athletics is changing and changing quickly. Unfortunately, the legislative process we have does not move as quickly at times, so we end up with a set of regulations that cannot always be applied neatly to current scenarios. Then, as we legislate to adapt to practices that may not be desirable in college athletics, we end up with a high volume of new legislation and some very technical rules while retaining some antiquated restrictions.
