The United States Sports Academy originated on April 22, 1972 but founder Dr. Thomas P. Rosandich began mulling over the concept two decades earlier. Working with world-class athletes all over Southeast Asia in the 1950s and 1960s as a U.S. Marine Corps track and field coach and as an Ambassador of Sport for the U.S. State Department, he recognized a need for better training and better science for coaches and athletes. Finally in 1972 while he was an athletic director at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Dr. Rosandich launched the Academy.

On the eve of the 40th Anniversary Celebration, held on April 19, 2012, Dr. Rosandich, the Academy’s president and CEO, sat down for an interview with The Sport Update to discuss significant developments in the sport institution’s history.

On the Academy’s connections with the Olympics: “The reason for the Academy’s success is the very network that I’ve built going on 60 years. Serving in the Marine Corps as the All-Marine coach, I had a stable of the greatest athletes in the world, like Bob Mathias, the world-class decathlete, Wes Santee, one of the best milers in the world, and Al Cantello, who held the world record in the javelin. Working with those people opened up a whole new world to me. As we prepare for the London Olympics, it works for us to this day. It is part of the Academy’s network.”

On being hired by the U.S. State Department as an Ambassador of Sport: “When I resigned from the Marine Corps, the U.S. State Department came and got me and made me an Ambassador of Sport. We were trying to spread goodwill through sport. I travelled to 42 countries, starting in the Kingdom of Laos, no less. I was the coach for them, Singapore, Malay—it wasn’t Malaysia back then—North Borneo and Indonesia from the Melbourne Olympics in 1956 to the 1964 Tokyo Games. The State Department sent me all over Asia again and again. It helped me develop an international network. All those athletes I had coached grew up and became leaders in their countries in key positions. That’s how we’ve developed the international programs that we have. For example, Mohammed Sarengat, one of my athletes who won the 100 meters and 100-meter hurdles in the 1962 Asian Games, became the Secretary General of the Indonesia Olympic Committee.”

On why Indonesia was a key to the Academy’s development: “The president of Indonesia, Sukarno, who was one of the most powerful people in the world at the time, hired me as their chief national coach. It was during the height of the Cold War between 1961 and 1965 and they had the third largest Communist Party membership. While I was there, I managed to build my first sports academy in Indonesia. That’s why it is a very important key to the United States Sports Academy’s development."

On the founding of the Board of Trustees and Board of Visitors: “I started laying out a plan for the sports academy and resigned from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee on my wife’s, Sally, birthday to build it. I chose five people who all came from UWM. Gerald Hock was the director of auxiliary enterprises. Dr. George Uhlig had an education background as dean of education and he had headed continuing education at the University of Nebraska. I was there for athletics. Our legal counsel, who worked for the Milwaukee Bucks, was Charles Cape. He wrote the first charter for the Academy. Bob Block was the head of the booster club at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and became the first chairman of our Board of Trustees. He was a consummate marketer.

“I gathered $500 from all five men and used every cent to recruit a National Faculty. They were very impressive. I would call them and tell them or write them about the idea. I didn’t have anyone say, ‘No.’ Our National Faculty has the most distinguished group of sport educators ever assembled under one umbrella, the United States Sports Academy. Also, when we were starting the Academy, we selected 32 of the top directors of athletics from Divisions I, II and III and the No. 1 heart surgeon in America, Denton Cooley. We had 33 members advising us. Thirty-three has always been my lucky number."

On moving the Academy to South Alabama: “We went to six cities all in the south—San Diego, Phoenix, Albuquerque (N.M.), Houston, New Orleans and Atlanta. Then George Uhlig said, ‘Why don’t you come to South Alabama?’ We got an invitation and we did. I met with University of South Alabama President Dr. Frederick Whiddon and his Board of Trustees. I was very impressed with the people I met. We almost immediately signed a contract with Bahrain and it gave us the financial wherewithal to move forward and become what we are now—the largest graduate school of sport in the world.”

On creating sport programs for Bahrain: “It was the first international contract that we had and really is the basis for the whole development of the Academy. The monies granted us the time to hire faculty and staff and build our academic programs. We brought people into the country in January 1977 to teach sport and we’ve been there ever since. It was the first nation where we built a master plan for sports and built a sports academy, which is a sister academy to our own in Daphne, Ala. We have taken hundreds of people from Bahrain through our sport academic programs."

On the Academy’s academic programs being 100% online: We used technology early on. Our commitment to technology is never ending. My concern right now is technology is moving so fast, how do you keep up with it? For 10 years, we tracked our online students and residential students at our school. Online students consistently had higher test scores, so that’s why we made the decision to go totally online.

On his wife, Sally Rosandich, the founding Executive Secretary to the Board of Trustees: I tell everyone that this Academy would not be in existence without Sally. She is smart and she is a thinker. She still proofreads everything that gets printed.

On the Academy’s future: I’m asked about this all the time. At the end of every summer school, I used to have a dog and pony show. I would tell the students who were on campus then to go back into the room and I would give them a final test. I told them to relax because no one was going to flunk it. I would go down the rows and ask them things like if they played sports and what was their major. Then I would go down the rows again and ask: ‘What are the reasons you came to the Academy?’

"This was my informal survey but it was the best survey we ever had. The single best changes we’ve made have come from our students. One reason the Academy has gotten to where it is because we listen to our students. We’ve gotten the best recommendations from them over the years. Because of our students, we changed our whole curriculum from quarter credit hours to semester credit hours and have added dual majors. When we started out there was nothing out there really like us. Now, there are more than 400 schools with sports degrees. I really want to do what we do but I want to do it better. I never stop looking for better ways to do what we do."