Friday, November 21st, 2008

Brother of MVP helping football team go “big-time”

Chris Howard is playing an important role in the Kansas athletics department

By B.J. Rains (Contact)

Wednesday, October 15th, 2008

Philadelphia Phillies first baseman and 2006 National League MVP Ryan Howard has hit home runs in dozens of ballparks around the country. But his brother, associate athletics director Chris Howard, remembers two in particular.

The date was April 7, 1999. Chris was finishing up law school at Kansas and Ryan was a freshman at the university then known as Southwest Missouri State. The Bears were in Lawrence to play the Jayhawks at Hoglund Ballpark.

Ryan had wanted to go to Kansas like his brother but was told no thanks by the Kansas coaching staff, because they already had a first baseman, and they just weren’t that interested in him.

Chris hurried from class down to the game and saw Ryan standing in the on-deck circle. He went right down by the fence and called his younger brother over.

“I said, ‘Hey, remember these guys said you weren’t good enough to play for them. You’re nothing but a big scrub,’” Chris said. “So he went up there and the guy grooved him one and he took it out onto Naismith Drive — an opposite field bomb.”

That afternoon Howard went 5-9 with five runs scored, five RBIs and two home runs to lead the Bears to a doubleheader sweep of the Jayhawks as he stuck it to Kansas for not offering him a chance to play.

Nine years later, Ryan is one victory away from reaching the World Series, and his brother Chris is an associate athletics director at Kansas where he works as the senior administrator for the football, track and field, and cross country teams.

Chris, who is 12 years older than his brother, spent time in the Army after earning his undergraduate degree at Kansas before deciding on a career in sports administration. He returned to Kansas for both graduate school and law school before latching on with a law firm in Kansas City.

From there, Chris went on to work as an investigator for the NCAA, where he investigated schools such as Alabama and Georgia for infractions within their athletics departments. He also trained professional sports agents on the NCAA rulebook so they would know their limits.

He took a job with LSU in Fall 2003 working with NCAA compliance. His job evolved and Howard soon became one of the most important pieces to the puzzle in the athletics department at LSU. While he was in Baton Rouge, the LSU football team won the 2004 national championship.

Soon after, Kansas Athletics Director Lew Perkins contacted Chris about joining his staff at Kansas, as he had done before Chris took the job at LSU, The two chatted at the Division I athletics directors meetings in 2006.

“I just saw a lot of qualities in him as I got to know him and talk with him that I thought he could be a benefit for us,” Perkins said. “He’s been around a lot of major programs, he’s worked for the NCAA, he’s a Kansas graduate — he’s been around athletics his whole life.”

Howard had been contacted by several schools about possibly joining their athletics departments, but he knew he wanted to get back to Lawrence.

“Lew said ‘We’re really trying to build football. We’re trying to get big-time football, and we need Jayhawks in there to help us,’” Howard said. “He pulled at the heart strings a little bit and I said, ‘You know, maybe this is a good time to go back.’”

Soon after he arrived, Howard sat down and watched the game film from each of the Jayhawks’ games in 2006. He realized Kansas didn’t have the depth or talent that LSU had, but he saw some fundamental elements that he liked. He also noticed that the team lost four games in the last two minutes.

“They could have been 10-2,” Howard said. “They didn’t know how to win close games. I started meeting the players and they asked me what the difference was from LSU to here and I said, ‘There’s no difference. It’s all here. The facilities are pretty much the same. But last year, LSU pulled out four games in the final two minutes, because they believed they could win.’”

Howard met regularly with coach Mark Mangino to work on ways to improve the program. He was the administrator who oversaw the completion of the $31-million Anderson Family Football Complex that was completed this summer. He also helped Aqib Talib and Anthony Collins research their draft statuses before the two decided to leave Kearly for the NFL Draft last year.

After seeing what it took to turn LSU into a national football power, Howard said he knew the same thing could be done at Kansas.

“The biggest thing right now is establishing a tradition and establishing a history and a track record,” Howard said. “Fans are fans, and the same fans that root for KU basketball would root for football and really any KU sport, if they are winning.”

Perkins hired Howard with expectations that he would eventually help turn the football team into a national power. Because the team won the Orange Bowl last year and has started this season 5-1, it appears they are on the right track.

“He’s doing better than I thought, and I had such high expectations for him,” Perkins said. “He’s doing a great job. He’s a very bright, engaging, smart, loyal employee. He works very well with the coaches, he is a great communicator with the student athletes, and he is a key player in terms of what our missions and goals are. Everybody in the department has a great deal of respect for him. He’s the whole package.”

Though Howard is pleased with his job, he hopes to someday become an athletics director.

“He has great qualities to be an athletic director,” Perkins said. “No question about it.”

Though Howard’s first priority is his job, he takes time each day to check the Phillies’ box score to see how his brother did. He talks to his brother four or five times a week through text and on the phone, offering him words of encouragement when he’s struggling and words of praise when he’s doing well.

“I told him that I’ve been with programs that have won national championships and it’s the same thing whether you’re here or at the professional level,” Howard said. “You have to take it one game at a time, control what you can control, and just enjoy the journey.”

Howard, who grew up as a St. Louis Cardinals fan and still roots for them when they aren’t playing the Phillies, went straight from the football game at Iowa State last Saturday to Milwaukee to see the end of game three of the Phillies’ division series against the Brewers. He stayed and saw the Phillies clinch the series the next day in game four.

And if Ryan and the Phillies can win one more game, Chris will put his work with the football team on hold so he can attend to some more important business.

“Definitely,” Howard said. “I will be there for the World Series.”

— Edited by Scott R. Toland

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