STARKVILLE — Lee VanHorn came to grips with the full reach of his new job in about a 30-minute span.
VanHorn was sitting in a meeting in Mississippi State’s athletic department when, in quick succession of each other, he received calls from director of women’s basketball operations Maryann Baker, director of men’s basketball operations Mike Moynihan, director of softball operations Jessica Cooley and then ran into the director of football operations Jon Clark after the meeting. All asked about different equipment questions they had for the respective athletes.
Such is the life of MSU’s new Assistant Athletic Director of Administration and Equipment.
VanHorn took the job over the summer, voiding his prior position of director of baseball operations filled by former MSU pitcher Trevor Fitts. It’s the continuation of VanHorn’s long, at times disjointed climb up the MSU athletic department’s ranks.
While VanHorn was earning his undergraduate and MBA degrees from MSU, he spent nearly the entire time working in MSU’s media relations department, getting his hands on nearly every sport on campus in some capacity. That, followed by an internship in the intelligence industry in Washington D.C., led VanHorn to Major League Baseball’s winter meetings with high hopes.
He left with an offer for a public relations internship position in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Ignoring his complete lack of ties to the area, VanHorn took the job to realize the dream of working in professional baseball. As he ascended to the Albuquerque Isotopes’ director of public relations, there came a sense of wondering what was next. It seemed destined to be at MSU, but VanHorn never imagined it playing out the way it has.
Twice VanHorn applied for positions in his familiar MSU media relations department; twice he was told they would hire someone else. Both times, Scott Wetherbee — then MSU’s assistant athletic director and now Eastern Michigan’s brand new athletic director — assured VanHorn the department thought highly of him and his time would come.
That time came in the winter of 2015. VanHorn was already on his way back to Mississippi to enroll in law school when Wetherbee called to inform him the director of baseball operations job was open. Looking back on it, VanHorn admits not much about it added up: he didn’t play baseball, his closest exposure to the program was merely in a media relations capacity and, once again, he was bound for law school.
Days later, he had the job.
“I would not be where I am right now if all of that had not worked out the way it had,” VanHorn said.
His tenure there took on the transition from John Cohen to Andy Cannizaro before, once again, Cohen saw VanHorn as fit for a job bigger than VanHorn saw in himself. Wetherbee’s move to Eastern Michigan and the retirement of Mike Nemeth created a series of duties Cohen decided he wanted to reorganize. As the position VanHorn now holds began to take shape, the answer was obvious — that didn’t make it easy.
“It was one of those deals: I hated to leave, but at the same time, with this opportunity, I couldn’t say no at this point in time in my career,” VanHorn said. “I like working on that side of it now, because now I work with different sports.”
Even with his new expanded duties, VanHorn will only get so far away from the baseball program: he is also the athletic department’s baseball sport administrator, what VanHorn likened to, “basically the liaison between the sport and the athletic program.”
That means a lot of communication with Fitts, his successor as the director of baseball operations. VanHorn said not a day has gone by that he and Fitts have not talked about something, but Fitts gives VanHorn credit for much more than simply doing his new job.
“Honestly, he put it in such a great position in terms of the organization he set forth, so I’m just trying to continue what he did and keep doing great,” Fitts said. “I want to continue to do that and figure out how to make it my own.
“He’s been great to talk to; I’m sure he’s getting tired of me calling by now. It’s been awesome. To me, he’s been one of the better director of ops in recent years.”
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