
By Rachel Knight
After serving as interim director of athletics, R.C. Slocum passed the Texas A&M University athletic director baton to Ross Bjork on July 8. Neither leader had to break stride during the transition because they share the same leadership values.
When the towering Aggie Bonfire collapsed in 1999, then head football coach Slocum canceled the afternoon practice and scheduled a team meeting. According to an article in The Eagle, the team made a unanimous decision to help move logs from the accident site, thus embodying the six core values of Texas A&M University. Texas A&M Athletics will continue to instill the values of excellence, integrity, leadership, loyalty, respect, and selfless service in student athletes under its new leadership.
Bjork came to Texas A&M after serving as director of athletics at the University of Mississippi for seven years. “I had a great job at Ole Miss,” Bjork shares. “I could have stayed for a long, long time, but what made this opportunity so attractive was I believe my values match the institutional values and leadership styles. A&M is so intentional about those core values. They’re posted in as many places as possible. It’s not just words on a column, but people carry those values out day in and day out.”
His leadership plan is founded on doing what’s best for student athletes. His approach tackles two main focuses. One is inspiring and providing the opportunity through athletics for people to receive an education. The other is making sure Texas A&M student athletes achieve to the best of their ability.
“In athletics, we are here to fulfill the mission of the university and we do that through a very visible platform,” Bjork explains. “Right or wrong, athletics has this amazing appeal where people a lot of times view their feelings about the university based on how the football team does; or did the basketball team win that championship; or did the baseball team make it to Omaha. With that comes a great responsibility to make sure we do it the right way. We have to have that set of values to provide the influence for making the proper decisions.”
Bjork uses his own personal values to guide him in both his professional and personal life. “To me, we have a choice when we wake up every day,” he shares. “Do we want to think positively, or do we want to think negatively? That doesn’t mean you’re not going to address problems or challenges, but it’s really how you do things.”
In addition to a positive attitude, Bjork’s personal values include the sentiment that nothing replaces hard work, and making sure his family and friends know he loves and cherishes them. Above all, he says his faith is his guide.
Before becoming part of the Aggie family, Bjork had several influential role models. He says his parents were his first role models. They gave him positive reinforcement, allowed him to be involved in sports growing up, and created a foundation for the leader he is today. His professional role models include Mike Alden, athletic director at Missouri; Dan Guerrero, athletic director at UCLA; John Wooden, former head basketball coach at UCLA; and Joe Castiglione, athletic director at the University of Oklahoma. He says Castiglione and Guerrero taught him to make informed decisions through an in-depth decision-making process, while Alden taught him to be aggressive. He balances the two to make his own deliberate and aggressive leadership style.
Wooden’s imprint on Bjork’s leadership style is easy to spot in his vision for Texas A&M Athletics, because Bjork says Wooden taught him that no matter what role you hold in an athletics program, you can always be an educator through athletics. “This is not just playing a game or a sport,” he explains. “It’s lessons in leadership and life and doing the right things, and making sure that’s the greater good, if you will, of why we’re here.”