The Unassumed Patriot Leader: Tom O’Connor

Story by Broadside Staff Writer Foxhall Parker. Photo courtesy of Go Mason.

Compared to Head Men’s Basketball Coach Jim Larranaga and the men’s basketball players, Athletic Director Tom O’Connor is a relative unknown in the Patriot fan community. It’s not surprising then that fans are unaware that much of George Mason University’s impressive athletic success these past few years (the Final Four run made by the men’s basketball team in 2006, having nationally ranked ranked men’s volleyball and women’s lacrosse teams) is due in part to the relatively behind-the-scenes work done by O’Connor.

Despite this fact, some of O’Connor’s proudest accomplishments come not from his own work, but from the students he supervises. “I don’t look at any accomplishments from a personal stand point at Mason. The accomplishments are those of the student athletes,” said O’Connor. Aside from the students athletic triumphs in their respective sports, their academic successes, like the student-athlete graduation rate, are what O’Connor is most proud of.

Under O’Connor, Mason’s multiple student-athletes have achieved Academic All-American honors. The administration recently earned the 2008 Diversity in Athletic Award in the African-American Graduation: Male Student-Athletes category.
The athletic facilities at Mason have also improved during O’Connor’s tenure. Most notably are the additions to the Physical Education Building.

“[The P.E Building] will give us a top quality venue for wrestling and volleyball,” said O’Connor. Mason’s most popular sports venue, the Patriot Center, is also undergoing a facelift. A new 20,400 square-foot facility will soon be added for the intercollegiate teams to practice and complete weight-training.

Aside from his work at Mason, O’Connor has served as CAA president and been a member of a slew of NCAA men’s basketball committees such as the Division 1 Strategic Planning Committee, the Rules Committee, and the Management Council. He is currently finishing his final year on the NCAA Selection Committee. This past year, he served as chair of the Selection Committee, which is responsible for selecting and seeding the NCAA Tournament field.

While president of the CAA from 2002 to 2004, O’Connor set out to turn the CAA from perennial oversight to perennial player. “One goal was to increase the visibility of the CAA in all sports with an emphasis on men’s and women’s basketball, but the overall riding goal was to move the CAA forward on a national level,” said O’Connor.

That goal of visibility manifested itself in the following years when CAA teams upset major conference opponents during the regular season and in the NCAA tournament. O’Connor continued to look for ways to put both Mason and the CAA on the national radar even after his term as president concluded.

Although he participates in many different NCAA committees, O’Connor’s main focus is still Mason athletics and their presence on campus. O’Connor knows that many of the faithful Patriots are enamored with the idea of bringing an intercollegiate football team to Mason, but he doesn’t foresee it happening this year.

“I think that George Mason will have a football team in the future. I’m not so sure it’s in the immediate future,” said O’Connor. “It’s really a financial issue. I think it would be great for the community, great for the sense of community, and great for the student body, but right now I think the finances are extremely high and there may be other initiatives on campus that may have a higher priority, but as I said there is nothing wrong with football at George Mason, there really isn’t. It’s just a matter of the enormous amount of money it would take to start it.”

Now entering his 15th year as a member of Mason’s faculty, O’Connor still finds his work enjoyable and believes the people at Mason are what keep him around and remaining enthusiastic about the future. ”I have always said ‘I don’t come to work I go to school.’ That feeling is still here. I don’t have any timetable for myself. Mason is a terrific place. The thing that Mason has going for it is its people. I have made a decision in my life, a couple times, that the reason why I have chosen to stay is the people,” said O’Connor.

Whether seen or unseen, O’Connor’s work and his legacy are present in the characters of the men and women that have graduated from Mason.