CSU’s Director of Athletics has found ‘home’ in Columbus
As he is most days, Todd Reeser was impeccably dressed in a suit and tie, pressed shirt and polished shoes. As Columbus State’s Director of Athletics, Reeser’s buttoned-down attire is very practical. Except for this particular occasion. He and associate AD Brian Senior were walking across the softball field when one of the players, apparently knowing his background as a baseball player back in his day, challenged him to hit. Then another player. Then another.
The goading finally hit a competitive nerve. Reeser jumped into the box – tie tucked into his dress shirt, mud caking on his polished shoes – and took his hacks. It was a bit humbling at first. “It’s probably been 15 years since I swung a bat.” But his fierce competitiveness wouldn’t let him leave the box until he squared up a few.
It’s little things like that he couldn’t do in the big-time world of Division I athletics. But it’s a reminder that bigger isn’t always better. Whereas he once held what he called “a Division I ego,” Reeser is in his third year at Columbus State and now feels like part of the family.
“I’ve gotten to know the kids. That’s one thing that’s different for me,” Reeser said. “As the person in charge of fundraising throughout my career, I’ve never really gotten to know the student-athletes, until my last few years (at Georgia State) being put in charge of a few sports. The reality is it made me a better fundraiser by getting to know the kids. They’re the ones receiving the support. You can tell the story better. Here, the kids, you get to know them. And it isn’t all about getting to know them as an athlete. You get to know the challenges they have or the needs they have when things aren’t going well. That’s been one of the positives. It’s important.”
To fully understand what drives Reeser, it’s important to go back to his roots. Even farther back than his days as a catcher at Illinois State, where he still holds the career fielding percentage record of .992. Go back to his days growing up on the family corn and soybean farm in Chenoa, Ill. – population 1,785 according to the 2010 census. Chenoa is the typical Midwest farm town where everyone knows everyone and those who leave always try to make it back for the Fourth of July celebration. Among them is former NBA coach Stan Albeck.
In addition to farming, Jim and Joyce Reeser owned the town’s corn sheller, so they needed every bit of help they could get. Todd and his siblings were hired hands as soon as they were strong enough.
“That’s hard work,” Todd Reeser said. “But that’s how you made money, and hopefully how you developed a work ethic. Played ball and worked on the farm, driving tractors since I was whatever.”
By playing ball, he means everything. Quarterback and linebacker on the football team. Do-it-all man in basketball. And catcher on the baseball team. He had several opportunities to play football but decided to stick with baseball after suffering a knee injury.
In kindergarten, he met a girl named Janet Reimer, who would become his high school sweetheart and has been Janet Reeser for the past 32 years, mother of their three children and still his sweetheart. The job titles in college athletics may have belonged to him, but theirs has been a true partnership since he graduated from Illinois State with a finance degree.
As much as Reeser loved competition, coaching never appealed to him. But he was intrigued by the growing field of athletic administration. He heard that St. Thomas University in Miami offered a master’s degree in sports administration.
“We thought, ‘Why not? Let’s take a look around,’ ” he said.
So the newlyweds hopped into their MGB and drove from Illinois to Miami, liked what they saw, and stayed there through graduate school. His first real job was back at Illinois State. He left for a better opportunity at Drake University in Des Moines as director of athletic development, but returned to Illinois State.
“Which was nice. My kids had Grandma and Grandpa up the road.”
They could have stayed there and been perfectly happy. But that’s where this adventure called life took a surprising turn. A friend took a job at Central Florida, which was trying to barge its way into college football’s big-time. UCF had hired former Georgia Tech coach George O’Leary and was building a football stadium. They needed an experienced fundraiser.
“I’m at my alma mater, but I said, ‘that sounds exciting.’ It was Orlando, you know. It wasn’t North Dakota. So we upped and moved and we had a great experience there for five years. Then we got an opportunity to go to Atlanta (Georgia State) to not just build a stadium but start a program from ground-up.”
Again, Reeser was perfectly happy at Georgia State, which like Central Florida, is trying to become big-time. When Jay Sparks left Columbus State to go to Francis Marion, a search committee heard about Reeser. Initially, he wasn’t all that interested. He was caught in what he calls “the Division I haze.”
“When this was brought to my attention, I got to admit at first I was like, ‘I was at the second largest school in the country (UCF), now I’m at an urban campus. I wasn’t sure how a D-II program fit. I was encouraged to take a look at it. When I did, I was like, ‘Wow. On facilities alone, wow!’ Then you start digging deeper and you find out they’ve had a great deal of success competitively. Then I went downtown, or Uptown, and thought, ‘This is amazing. I had no idea.’ ”
That encouragement came from Georgia State baseball coach Greg Frady, who was on Derek Mann’s staff in 1990 when the Cougars went to the World Series.
“Todd is very much a people person,” Frady said. “He treats everybody with dignity and respect. He’s competitive and he’s a winner.”
Reeser came down on a discreet scouting trip and was blown away. Something else other than the facilities caught his attention. For the past five years he had been working in downtown Atlanta at GSU’s “concrete campus.” Amid all of the new buildings at CSU, Reeser saw something comfortably familiar – lots of green grass.
“As a farm kid – I’m not a big city kid even though I had lived in Atlanta or Orlando – it just felt right,” Reeser said. “Just kind of fortunate the way it has worked out. It’s been a great fit, I think.”
Fits him like a custom-made dress shirt. Reeser has learned to appreciate the Division II life.
“Winning is winning.”
He has felt welcomed here and sees this as a destination job. The Cougars reclaimed the Peach Belt Conference’s Commissioner’s Cup for the first time in five years and are off to a good start this year. The women’s soccer team again made it to the Final Four. The basketball teams were a combined 11-0 going into Saturday’s games at Flagler. He speaks respectfully of his predecessors, Sparks and Herbert Greene.
“Their finger prints are all over this place. I think of that when I’m in here.”
Greene especially welcomed Reeser when he arrived. Reeser played a role in having the basketball court named for Greene, which thankfully came before Greene died of a heart attack.
“One of the highlights of my career was the day I had lunch with him and told him we were going to name the court after him,” Reeser said. “Pretty cool. I don’t know why I was the one who was fortunate enough to do that, but it meant a lot.”
It’s not easy to fit in so quickly in a community like Columbus. But Reeser has done just that.
“Never, ever have I felt like I was an outsider. I appreciate that,” Reeser said. “From people who are involved in Columbus State or citizens, I never felt like that. But again, that’s kind of my nature. You just try to get to know people, be genuine and in turn I think they will be the same with you. I’ve met some wonderful people in this community.
“Just makes it feel like home.”
This story was originally published December 17, 2016 at 3:03 PM with the headline "CSU’s Director of Athletics has found ‘home’ in Columbus."