he put together a combination degree of a master’s in sports administration with a J.D. “One thing that’s fascinating about the law is that it reaches every aspect of our lives,” he said. “I really wanted to have a true understanding of the nature of the business that I was going into.” Juggling the completion of two demanding programs, Howard still managed to have a distinguished law school career, receiving the Justice Lloyd Kagey Leadership Award his final year. And the connections he made during law school set the tone for his future career in sports administration. “It’s a ‘who you know business,’” he said. “You need someone to vouch for you, and then someone else will
take a chance for you. It’s definitely the power of who.” In this case, the “who” was Dean Hoeflich, whose former firm in Syracuse, N.Y., had ties to the NCAA. Hoeflich helped Howard connect with the firm, and he spent three years there in law school as a clerk. Once Howard graduated, he got a job with the NCAA in enforcement before moving to an associate athletics director position at LSU. Now he holds the same position at KU. “A typical day for me is planning and problem-solving,” he said. “I deal with everything from supervising sports, to managing budgets, to personnel issues, to student-athlete issues.” As a proud Jayhawk, Howard remembers going out to lunch while
clerking in Syracuse and sitting near three other clerks, who were Ivy League law school students. Their attempts to one-up each other drew a chuckle from Howard, and they asked how he could afford to laugh given that KU didn’t rank anywhere near their own institutions. “I said, ‘I’m not even going to get into a discussion with you, but considering I’m going through the same clerkship and have $100,000 less in debt, I think I might be smarter than you,’” he said. “The education is second to none, and I bleed crimson and blue.” n
“The education is second to none, and I bleed crimson and blue.”
KU LAW MAGAZINE 13