Did Jim Smith ever see himself here, as a Big Ten athletic director?

He pauses. It’s a complicated answer to a simple yet layered question.

“Earlier on in my career, I did,” Smith said “When I was working at Ohio State, that was what I thought was going to be the pathway, and then the journey took me somewhere else. I thought there was a chance, and then I got so far from it that I thought there was no chance. Then the industry changed, and there was a chance again.”

Smith, hired by Maryland in June to replace Damon Evans as the school’s athletic director, does not possess the resume of a traditional leader of a Big Ten athletic department. And he knows it: “I’m not a candidate five years ago,” he said. But he’s here, explaining the past that brought him to this lunch overlooking th

See Full Page