Lantern sports editor Zack Meisel sat down for an exclusive interview with Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith last week to discuss a number of topics, including Big Ten expansion and compliance issues in college athletics. The following is an excerpt from the interview. Check back with The Lantern all quarter for more from Meisel’s interview with Smith.

The Lantern: Are you sick of the word ‘expansion’ yet?

Smith: No, not really. It’s funny, because I’m watching everybody else. We’re basically done for now. I don’t know if we’ll expand any more, I really don’t. It’s a possibility, but what’s interesting is watching the rest of the landscape with the WAC and the Mountain West, and there’s rumors about the SEC.

TL: When you see the turmoil at programs like USC and North Carolina, what goes through your mind?

GS: I feel for them. I’ve been there, as an athletic director, when I first came to Ohio State and actually had it at Arizona State. I was on the NCAA infractions committee, so I heard cases, Michigan’s case, Utah’s case, a whole bunch of them. So I feel for them, because at the end of the day, everyone’s trying to do what’s right. And there’s some things you can’t control. I don’t know their particular situations. But do we have some bad people in the business? No doubt. But 99 percent of our people are trying to do it the right way, and outside influences take them to where they are.

TL: In the case of Georgia receiver A.J. Green the report was that he sold his own jersey. Can you at least see where he’s coming from, maybe feel for the kid? He knew he was wrong, but some of these kids — maybe it’s the situation they’re in?

GS: See, I don’t. My thing is, if one of our kids really needs money and they’re in dire straits, they should have a relationship with their coach where they can share that. Then we find a way to help them. … I could give you countless stories where our kids have come to us and said, ‘I’ve got this problem.’ And so then we find a way to solve it. And there are ways to solve it. Philosophically, going to your point, should we be able to allow kids to sell jerseys or their likenesses and make money? I believe that, but I believe that money should be saved in an account for them for when they graduate. If you open that door and you allow every kid to monetize their persona, holy smokes. So I’m good with it if we said, ‘Whatever a kid’s jersey value is, you sell it, but you take a portion of that money because you have expenditures, you take the profit from it and put it in an account, if the kid graduates.’ I wouldn’t give it to them unless they graduate, they get the money. I’ve always said that that’s the way to go.

TL: What was it like being named athletic director of the year by the Sports Business Journal?

GS: It was funny, I was supposed to go on a vacation with my wife and we had three other couples we were going with. We were leaving on a Wednesday night, and I remember getting a call and they saw that I wasn’t coming. They invite six ADs to come and one of the six wins, it’s kind of like the Oscars. So I wasn’t going to go because I didn’t think I was going to win. I told the guy, ‘Look, I’m going on vacation with my wife.’ And he said, ‘Mr. Smith, I can’t tell you that you should be here, but I want to tell you that Sean McManus from CBS is going to provide the award and it’s probably to your advantage to be here.’ And I said, ‘OK, I think I get what you’re saying, but here’s my deal: If I tell my wife I’m going to be a day late to this vacation spot, you’ve got my back, right?’ And he said, ‘No problem, she’ll be happy that you did this.’ That’s exactly how it went. One, I was moved in that moment. I was there in front of those people and I felt great that I was able to represent the department and get that award because I’m just standing on the shoulders of a whole lot of people who do a whole lot of work.

TL: And it made the vacation even better.

GS: It made the vacation a whole lot better because I was able to take the trophy with me. And I had my buddies down there, helping me, protecting my back.

TL: What, if any, major flaws does the Ohio State athletic department still have that you’re working on?

GS: A lot of our stuff is in facilities. My predecessor, Andy (Geiger), did an unbelievable job with the ‘Shoe, the Schott, Bill Davis Stadium, Jesse Owens. Now, we have to take all of those other sports and get their facilities up to par. We just finished field hockey. I remember our first game here in ’05, I was standing on the practice field with Tressel one evening, it was getting dark, and we didn’t have lights out there. So, that’s always been on my to-do list, is to get what we just completed done. So it’s a lot of little projects that are highly important. We’ve got the boathouse that’ll be done in December, tennis we have one of the top three tennis programs in the country, which most people are surprised at, and they have cracks on their court with water coming up the cracks. I hope to have all this done in a short period of time. Of all of those sports with facilities where we want our kids safe and they’re representative of the quality of that team, field hockey just got done and field hockey was playing on a compacted, 10-year-old artificial turf that I know was killing their knees. Anyway, that’s our biggest challenge is getting those facilities done.

And then the other piece is staying on the cutting edge, that allows us to continue to communicate with our fans and recruit. This past year, we had 422,000 Facebook views, largest in the country, 51 million hits on our website. We’re setting up a training session for our coaches and some of our staff on Twitter on how to properly use Twitter and maximize our opportunities. That type of stuff is not a flaw as much as it is staying — keeping that focus — staying on the cutting edge. Our core leadership is in our coaching staff, and we have great coaches, so I don’t see many flaws.