Ross Bjork
Ross Bjork’s work ethic is a lesson in endurance for the hundreds of student athlete Rebels who play for the 164-year-old school known colloquially as Ole Miss. Whether he’s personally calling seat holders for renewals, or leading pep rallies with athletes, Bjork has spent his last 10 months at the legendary school in Oxford, Miss., in the public eye with an unfiltered view of athletics through his Twitter feed @RossBjorkAD. That visibility exploded during this year’s National Signing Day successes — five new prospects signed with the SEC school, including No. 1 recruit Defensive End Robert Nkemdiche. Venues Today sat down with Bjork at PACnet ’13 to discuss the hype around this year’s class and the convergence of tradition and Twitter at Ole Miss.
You’ve worked at a number of big schools with big personalities at the helm. Who has been most influential in your career?
I learned so much from Coach John Wooden during my time in Los Angeles. I was very fortunate to be around him during the five years I spent at UCLA. He passed away in June 2010 right after I left — the time we spent together was incredibly valuable. He taught me to keep it simple and build a foundation around my beliefs and values. If you look at Coach Wooden’s Pyramid of Success, he had a focus on the process and not necessarily the end result. If the process is 100-percent accurate, then you’re going to win.
You have quite a long resume for someone who is only 40 years old, especially considering you’re the youngest AD of any BCS school. Walk us through your career.
I got my start with three different internships — I was a marketing intern at the University of Tulsa (Okla.), a front office intern for a minor league baseball team called the Albuquerque (N.M.) Dukes, and a volunteer in the athletics department at Emporia (Kan.) State University. I spent six years at the University of Missouri working in their development office, and spent two years doing a similar job at the University of Miami. In 2005 I went over to UCLA to manage their fundraising activities, including the John Wooden Athletic Fund and helped raise funds to renovate Pauley Pavilion. I then went on to work at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, which is where I got my start in 1996, but this time as their athletic director. On March 21 of last year, I was hired to work at Ole Miss.
You’re one of the few Athletic Directors to actively use Twitter and take a conversational approach to social media. How did you get started on the platform?
I created an account as a news feed, just to follow what others were saying about UCLA. A friend of mine at Iowa State saw that I was on Twitter and suggested that now that I was an AD at Western Kentucky, I should start using it. Now that I’m at Ole Miss and the stage is a little larger, I can have more impact with Twitter. I love the interaction — you will get blasted and people will throw stuff at you, but that’s what you have to deal with and sometimes you have to block that out.
Does your communications team have to approve your tweets before they go out?
No, there’s no filter. We have athletes who tweet and we have three rules — don’t call out teammates, don’t call out the other team and watch your language. We also monitor compliance-related keywords, but ultimately we tell people to use Twitter in a positive way to build up our program.
How many people tweet to you on game day?
If we’re playing good, fans will tweet a lot and if we’re bad they’ll tweet even more — I’d say 50 to 75 tweets.
Do you respond to everyone?
Some of them I do. It sometimes depends on connectivity and sometimes we won’t see them until the end of the game.
What type of tweets gets the most response?
Right now, we’re on a streak with five sold-out basketball games. We’ve challenged our fans asking ‘Why stop? Let’s make it six, then seven.” That kind of stuff gets a lot of traction and people feel challenged. If a call to action is done the right way — and people don’t feel like they’re being called out — it will get picked up and retweeted.
Does NCAA have guidelines for what you can say on Twitter?
Yes, but the rules aren’t specific just to ADs and more deal with overall professional behavior. They’re looking for comments that are unsportsmanlike, and some coaches and athletes have been reprimanded by things they said about officials or other teams. There’s always someone watching it. I tell the athletes — think before you tweet. What would you think if your mom saw this?
Do you respond to negative tweets?
Occasionally. If they’re asking questions about a coach, I might respond. A lot of time, it’s game day logistical issues like a problem with parking. If I get a message like that, I’ll try to say ‘thanks for the heads up. I’ll make sure to forward this to the right person and we’ll take care of it.”
What was Signing Day like for you on Twitter?
It was wild. There was a constant stream and it became an all-day interaction with fans.
Did any media reach out to you over Twitter to request interviews?
A radio station in Nashville did, as did a radio station in Texas. Wright Thompson from ESPN messaged back and forth with me about how exciting the signings were. There was some good media interaction.
Whom do you follow?
I follow about 1,000 people and that might be a little cluttered, but I like to see how our athletes are using it to get our fans fired up, or talking about supporting other teams. I like to see them generate excitement for our program. And I love humor, so anything that can make me laugh might get a retweet.
Have you ever deleted a tweet?
Yes. I took a picture with some fans in College Station, Texas, during a tailgate before a baseball game. They had a flag that should not have been flying in the background, someone took a picture of us, sent it to me on Twitter and I hit retweet without looking at it. I tweeted it and our people took it down in about four minutes.
So the school has access to your account?
Just our marketing guy. But he doesn’t tweet for me — it’s just a backup. If I’m flying and my account gets hacked or something like this happens, he can manage it. Otherwise, everything you see on my account comes from me.
Contact: (662) 915-7241