Athletic director Gene Smith will gain oversight of Ohio State's sports and entertainment venues under a contract extension that runs through 2020, school officials announced yesterday.

Athletic director Gene Smith will gain oversight of Ohio State�s sports and entertainment venues under a contract extension that runs through 2020, school officials announced yesterday.

The promotion gives him a new title, vice president, and a base salary increase of about $100,000. Smith will be paid $940,484 a year retroactive to July, and he will be eligible for merit pay raises. His previous contract, under which he held the title of associate vice president, was set to expire in 2016.

Smith, 58, said he plans to make Ohio State his last stop before retirement.

�I�m originally from Ohio. I have a vision for Buckeye athletics and what we want to do athletically and academically,� he said.

Over the past year, Smith has been working with other OSU leaders to raise more money through such venues as the Schottenstein Center, Blackwell Inn, Drake Union and Fawcett Center. His promotion will make that work permanent and give him leadership over OSU�s partnership with Nationwide Arena, where he will work to bring in entertainment acts and sporting events.

�Gene Smith is one of this country�s most accomplished collegiate athletics directors, with an exemplary record of national leadership and service,� Ohio State interim president Joseph A. Alutto said in a statement. �Thanks to his dedication to student success, graduation success rates of Ohio State�s student-athletes have risen by 11 percentage points, to 89 percent.�

Ohio State officials released some details of the agreement but did not provide the full contract, saying it had not yet been completed. At the Schottenstein Center and Nationwide Arena, Smith wants to help bring in more concerts and major athletic events, but he said he doesn�t know whether he can do all that before 2020.

�There�s a long list,� he said.

Since Smith was hired in 2005, Ohio State teams have won 10 national championships, and 60 individuals have won national championships. OSU has produced 22 Olympians, and the football team has competed in two national championship games.

But Smith also has weathered controversies. Then-president E. Gordon Gee said Smith�s oversight was insufficient after a tattoos-for-memorabilia scandal that led to the ouster of football coach Jim Tressel. Smith brought in Urban Meyer to replace Tressel, and the team has since gone 24-2 in two seasons.

Smith cited successes among the 34 other varsity programs, which he said too often are overlooked. The men�s tennis team, for example, has 177 straight home victories, the longest streak among tennis teams in the nation, he said.

Smith said he wants to see more academic improvement among athletes. He wants his teams to win more. And he backs plans to build a 4,000-seat arena that will be home to seven varsity sports, including wrestling, volleyball and gymnastics.

cbinkley@dispatch.com

@cbinkley