Big Man on Campus: Ron Wellman refuses to let the size of the school inhibit the size of its dreams
By Dan Collins, JOURNAL REPORTER Jul 5, 2009
The Wake Forest University athletics teams have flourished under the leadership of Ron Wellman, winning conference and national championships.
When Ron Wellman says that he and his family are in a great place right now, he means it in more ways than one.
He and his wife, Linda, love where they live, surrounded by their three adult daughters and their families. They're happy and fulfilled in Winston-Salem.
"We've got grandchildren now, so we spend as much time as we can with them," Wellman said. "They're a part of what we do here. They come to all the games and all. We have an absolute blast having them here.
"As they get older, it will even be better."
Wellman will soon complete his 17th year as the director of athletics at Wake Forest University. The university's teams have flourished under him, winning conference and national championships while generally exceeding expectations for the smallest school in the Atlantic Coast Conference and one of the smallest to play major-college football.
His accomplishments have not gone unnoticed. Street & Smith's SportsBusiness Journal named Wellman its college athletics director of the year for 2008. He has maintained a high national profile working on a number of NCAA councils and committees and was recently selected to perhaps the most prestigious committee of all, the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Committee.
Praise can even be found where one least expects to find it -- on Internet message boards, where fans of rival schools use Wake Forest's success under Wellman as a cudgel to take another whack at their own athletics directors.
"Wellman is the role model of how a competent AD should operate," EasternNCstyleBBQueWolf recently wrote on N.C. State's Scout.com message board.
Or one could take the word of a somewhat more reputable source:
"He is highly respected in the industry, and he's earned that respect," Commissioner John Swofford of the ACC said.
"And I think he has earned it by the consistency he has had over the years, by the standards he sets for himself and those around him, by his capabilities administratively, which are enormous, by the manner in which he treats people, and the manner in which he conducts himself.
"When you put all that together, what you have is one heck of a fine athletic director."
Nathan O. Hatch considered himself blessed upon becoming the president of Wake Forest four years ago. In Wellman, he said, he had an athletics director he could trust and respect.
"It's a wonderful asset and blessing, because athletics can do so much for an institution -- and it's done that for Wake Forest," Hatch said. "It's the most high-profile thing, for good or ill.
"In our case, my experience has been so positive, and Ron deserves great credit for that."
Wellman spurned efforts by Arizona State in 2000 and Tennessee in 2003 to lure him away.
"There isn't anything we don't enjoy about Wake Forest," he said. "We love this institution. So the question it always came down to was, ‘Why would we take a chance with our happiness when we know that we can be happy here?' It just didn't make a lot of sense.
"As it played out, all of our kids are here now. If we had taken one of those other opportunities, that probably wouldn't be the case. So from a professional standpoint, we couldn't be happier. From a personal standpoint, we couldn't be happier…."
Made for the job
Wellman's love for athletics -- and his penchant for hard work and organization -- came from his father, a pharmacist in Dayton, Ohio, whose own parents came to America from Germany.
Wellman, born May 2, 1948, in Celina, Ohio, is the oldest of three children by Karl and Norma Jean Wellman. He has a sister, Karla Jean, and a brother, David.
"I probably took more from my dad than anyone," Wellman said. "He was a man who expected excellence from himself and worked his tail off to achieve it. And he instilled that in the family."
Wellman's early dream was to reach the big leagues, and he was good enough to pitch for Bowling Green University and Chatham of the Cape Cod League, the gold standard of summer amateur-baseball leagues. But his shoulder gave out the summer before his senior season, costing him precious speed on his money pitch, the fastball.
So he did what he would so often do in later times of conflict and despair. He phoned Linda, whom he had known throughout high school. On this occasion, he didn't call just to pass the time.
"I got my arm hurt, and I was depressed," Wellman said. "I called her from a phone booth from a gas station and proposed to her."
Wellman was married by his senior year and starting to realize he might need a backup plan. It took no less than perhaps the best third baseman in baseball history to drive the point home.
Wellman had known Mike Schmidt since childhood in Dayton, but the two never got along. Schmidt's family owned and operated the swimming pool and miniature-golf complex where Wellman and friends often passed summer days.
"Mike went to another high school, and he was one year behind me," Wellman said. "And we'd have these basketball games every day at the pool, and we would practically end up in a fight every day. We just couldn't stand one another."
Wellman last saw Schmidt in the spring of 1970, when Bowling Green rallied from a 10-run deficit against Schmidt's Ohio University team. Bowling Green's coach, having exhausted his pitching, asked Wellman if he was up for an inning or two. Wellman said yes, rag arm and all.
"The year before, I'd pitched against Ohio University and had a pretty good game," Wellman said. "I just threw all fastballs at that point. And the first two guys, they were expecting I was going to throw all fastballs. And I wasn't throwing, I'll bet, 70 miles an hour. And they were so far out front, I struck two guys out…."
Up to the plate stepped Schmidt, who was still honing the Hall-of-Fame stroke that would launch 548 homers in 18 seasons with the Philadelphia Phillies Wellman managed to slip two fastballs past Schmidt.
"I had him 0-2, and I said ‘This is a great opportunity. I'm going to really knock him down,'" Wellman recalled. "I threw one, and I gave it all I had -- which meant it was probably going about 72 miles an hour. It wasn't high enough, and it wasn't inside enough, and he hit it about 800 feet.''
Starting out
Wellman's first training for his current position came at Elmhurst College, a school of about 2,500 undergraduates in Illinois.
In 10 years there, Wellman was the head baseball coach, an assistant in football and basketball, a physical-education instructor and eventually the director of athletics. Linda taught elementary school. Their two oldest daughters, Angie and Nicole, were born there. Melissa, the youngest, arrived later.
"I thought I'd spend the rest of my life at Elmhurst," Wellman said. "We were very, very happy at Elmhurst, and loved the school and loved the people I worked with.
"They gave me unbelievable opportunities. They worked my tail off, but I really enjoyed that. We really bought into that community…."
He loved Elmhurst so much that he tried to leave and couldn't.
Wellman had become the AD by the time he was offered a position with a company building and promoting camping parks in the Northwest. He was promised three times more money and accepted the job, then had second thoughts after talking with a player he had met during his trip to campus to clean out his office.
"After he left, I broke down," Wellman recalled. "I called Linda and I said, ‘Linda, I've just made the biggest mistake of my life. We're chasing money, and that's not what we're about. I'm going to be miserable.'
"She said, ‘Well you'd better get back over to the dean's office and beg for your job back.' So I went back over to the dean and said, ‘Is there any way I can apply for my job?' He said, ‘You're just rehired.'"
Wellman got the opportunity to coach at Northwestern after drawing the attention of Dennis Single, Northwestern's AD, when his Elmhurst team swept Northwestern in a doubleheader.
He proved to be a good coach. His Wildcats, after seasons of 25-27 and 32-30, enjoyed the best stretch in school history, finishing 44-18 in 1984, 40-18 in 1985 and 39-14 in 1986.
Although Wellman loved the game, he hated to lose. The sense that he had somehow let down his team, and himself, ate him up. He began taking a circuitous route home.
"So I wouldn't be an absolute jerk when I got home," he explained.
Focused on success
Determined to make his mark in athletics administration, Wellman spent two years as the AD at Mankato State in Minnesota and five years after that at Illinois State. Wake Forest hired him in October 1992 to succeed Gene Hooks, who had held the job since 1964.
In the 17 years since, Wake Forest has won ACC championships in baseball (3), field hockey (3), basketball (2), women's golf (3), men's cross country (2), women's cross country (1) and football (1), and NCAA championships in field hockey (3) and men's soccer (1). The program regularly ranks in the top 50 among Division I schools in the NACD Directors Cup, finishing as high as No. 23 in 2007.
Anyone who last visited campus or the area around Deacon Boulevard in 1992 wouldn't recognize either place today. Almost every athletics building, stadium or practice facility has been built, bought or renovated in the last 17 years, with the crown jewel of the improvements -- the $45 million Deacon Tower -- opening at BB&T Field before the 2008 football season.
"All the (athletics directors) I have worked for were outstanding," basketball coach Dino Gaudio said. "I just don't know if anybody has done more with perhaps not as many resources as other people in this league. He really has.
"And I think because he sort of lets us know: ‘We're not going to be Little Wake Forest. We want to compete for championships.' And I think we all understand coming in here that to do that, at times, we have to overachieve.
"He has overachieved I think at what he does, and therefore I think it trickles down to us as well."
Nobody remains anywhere 17 years without creating a ripple of criticism. For years, the charge was leveled that all the ACC titles of the Wellman era were won by coaches hired by Hooks, a slap that lost some of its sting when Jim Grobe's football team won the 2006 ACC championship and Jay Vidovich's soccer team won the 2007 national championship.
If Wellman had never accomplished anything at Wake Forest other than hiring and retaining Grobe, there would be reason to consider his tenure a success. The Deacons were historically bad in football and remained that way for the eight seasons after Wellman made his first hire, Jim Caldwell.
Then Wellman got it right, hiring Grobe despite his 33-33 record at Ohio University. In eight years under Caldwell, the Deacons were 26-63. In eight years under Grobe, they're 54-44 coming off successive seasons of 11-3, 9-4 and 8-5. Of Wake Forest's six bowl victories, Grobe has coached three.
Grobe has repeated time and again that Wellman has been a major reason he has remained at Wake Forest. After he turned down Arkansas after the 2007 season, he cited the security of going to bed at night knowing your boss had your best interests at heart.
"I've said that before, and then Ron comes back and says he's a little uncomfortable with me going to bed at night thinking about him," Grobe said. "As much as anything, I don't know a more honest person, a more trustworthy person. He's a guy who I literally would trust with my life.
"That's an important trait in a boss, to have somebody who you know when he tells you something, you can take it to the bank. That's just as good as it gets. That's what every coach wants."
A voice of reason
Wellman isn't prone to filibusters in meetings.
"When Ron talks, he has something to say," Swofford said. "And people know that around the table. And consequently they listen."
Wellman also is generally known as one of the clearest heads in the room, a reputation that took a bit of a hit after his staunch support for ACC expansion. The conventional wisdom was that the addition of Virginia Tech, Miami and Boston College would make it ever harder for the ACC's smallest school to remain competitive.
The conference expanded to 12 schools when BC was added in 2005. In 2006, Wake Forest won its first football championship in 36 seasons.
"I think a lot of people felt like on the surface, ‘Gosh, Wake Forest could be a school that could competitively be hurt by that,'" Swofford said.
"He's not afraid of challenges, and I think he saw the opportunity that existed there, for the entire league as well for Wake Forest. He was very supportive from very early on in those discussions, and that was important. That was very important."
One of Wellman's finest hours at Wake Forest was also his darkest. When Skip Prosser, the popular basketball coach, collapsed on the campus track and died in July 2007, all of college basketball was stunned. The shock was greatest at the epicenter, and Wake Forest needed to mourn.
Those gathered at Bridger Field House for the media conference saw something most had never seen -- an emotional Wellman with tears in his eyes. Professional and upright in bearing, Wellman can come across in public as unduly formal and stiff.
It was heart-warming and consoling to see a side of Wellman that those closest to him know so well.
"I was at the press conference, and he was very intent on not breaking down," Linda Wellman said. "He was concerned particularly at that moment and then during the funeral, about not breaking down.
"And he really thought he might. But he knew he had a job to do, and he wanted that evening to get the job done."
Grobe pointed out that Wellman is hardly the only person in the public eye to have a private side that few see.
"He's a very caring guy," Grobe said. "He's really fun to be with, whether it's out on the golf course or any gathering. I have as much fun with Ron as anybody I've ever been around.
"But I think he's also very professional. And I think that's where you have to draw a line. There's a time when you're doing your job and you're leading people and you have to act in a professional manner. And I don't think there's anybody who gives a better image to Wake Forest than Ron Wellman."
Character matters
One of Wellman's biggest challenges for the rest of his time at Wake Forest will not change. Despite the school's size, it's important to him that the Deacons stay competitive in the ACC and on the national stage. And rather than let school size be a negative, Wellman sees it as a positive.
"Wake Forest is unique. We have something unique to offer that most other schools can't offer: the smallness," he said. "I tell our recruits that you are going to be in an environment where we will stretch you to find your full potential -- academically and athletically. But you will be doing it in a nurturing environment, where people really care about you beyond your academic life or beyond your athletic life. And that is what sets Wake Forest apart.
"You combine that benefit with the fact that we have as many scholarships as everybody else, there's no reason for us not to excel…."
Wellman's parents -- Karl pushing 90 and Norma Jean soon to be 85 -- visit regularly from Ohio, more regularly perhaps during baseball season.
Karl Wellman is a lifelong baseball fan who, on family trips, was known to pull the car off the interstate toward the arc lights of a ballpark.
"He sits there, and he counts pitches," Wellman said. "He'll tell you how many pitches both pitchers have thrown.
"He'll sit there and not say a word the entire game, and he thinks he's died and gone to heaven when he's at a ball game."
The time may arrive when Ron Wellman can be found sitting silently at a game at Wake Forest Baseball Park in the company of children, grandchildren or even great-grandchildren, watching the game and counting pitches.
At least one man is happy that time is not at hand.
"Ron is a person of great character and expects to have an organization that supports the highest principles," Hatch said.
"I see Ron as someone with a wonderful balance with a deep, competitive drive to win and excel, but within a framework of character and doing it right -- a framework that you never transcend or never breach."
■ Dan Collins can be reached at 727-7323 or at
dcollins@wsjournal.com.
The Wellman file
• Full name: Ronald Dean Wellman.
• Age: 61.
• Hometown: Dayton, Ohio.
• Family: wife, Linda; daughters Angie, Nicole, Melissa.
• Education: Bachelor of science, master's degrees, Bowling Green University.
• Current position: Director of athletics at Wake Forest University.
• Previous positions: Head baseball coach and director of athletics at Elmhurst College. Head baseball coach at Northwestern; director of athletics at Illinois State.
• Major accomplishments: Street & Smith's SportsBusiness Journal athletics director of the year in 2008; longest tenure among ACC directors of athletics; Elmhurst College athletics hall of fame; member of NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Committee.
• Job description: Provides leadership and direction for Wake Forest's Department of Intercollegiate Athletics; supervises and administers staff and coaches; manages budget.
