While Cobb County’s college football team continues to soar on the field, how those athletes prepare for what they do once they graduate is regarded as just as important.
Milton Overton, the Kennesaw State athletics director, pointed to himself as an example.
“I’m a guy who wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for being able to play football,” said Overton, the guest speaker at Tuesday’s East Cobb Business Association luncheon.
An offensive lineman for the powerhouse team at Oklahoma, he has also earned two master’s degrees and nearly completed his work on a doctorate.
“Education is the great equalizer, the vehicle for many Americans to have success.”
Overton, who arrived at KSU last fall, has enjoyed a 25-year career as a college sports administrator, and at some of the top programs in the country, including Alabama and Texas A & M.
Along the way, he’s been involved in nearly every aspect of what it takes for athletes to succeed on the field, as well as away from it.
Like many college athletic departments, KSU has a special program to help with the latter. It’s called “Flight Path,” and Overton stressed how good work habits and discipline for athletes now will help when they’re ready to begin their non-sports work careers.
In the Flight Plan program, KSU student-athletes work with a “career coach” to help them assess post-college working opportunities. Those coaches are local professionals who share information about their fields.
Current student-athletes also hear from KSU graduates who played sports, and who offer practical advice on what it’s like in the adult world.
The highly-regimented schedules of college athletes, Overton said, offer them an opportunity to enter the work world with an advantage.
He said the graduation rate for athletes is often higher than non-athletes at many universities because of additional tutoring and academic services.
If a young person is accustomed to “12-hour days over four years,” he said, he or she is “more than likely with an employer to have a good shot” at securing a good job.
Now the third-largest university in Georgia with nearly 35,000 students, KSU has quickly succeeded since beginning varsity football in 2015.
The Owls, who are ranked fifth nationally in the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS), reached the national quarterfinals a year ago. Overton recently extended the contract of head coach Brian Bohannon through 2023, and KSU is trying to sell 30,000 tickets for a November game at SunTrust Park.
Overton was hired by then-KSU president Sam Olens after two years as athletics director at Florida A & M, which was undergoing financial struggles.
The FCS designation is just below the Football Bowl Subdivision, where Georgia and Georgia Tech play. Overton said that for now, there’s no desire for KSU to make a move up, as Georgia State has done.
“We want to be where we have a chance to complete,” he said. “If we keep doing what we’re doing, at some point” there may be some consideration. “This school is primed to do some good things,” he said, and not just in sports.
“KSU is a rocket ship,” Overton said. “I’m just trying to hold on.”
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