Throwback Thursday: 11.1.12 Banks Floodman (Football) 2001-05

Nov. 1, 2012

Banks Floodman was born in Wichita, Kan. where he attended Wichita Collegiate High School. Floodman earned a football scholarship to play at the University of Kansas. As a key linebacker, he was a three-year team captain from 2002-05. In his redshirt sophomore season he recorded 93 tackles, fourth highest on the team. He also was awarded the Nolan Cromwell Award for Leadership and the Iron Hawk Award for outstanding work in the weight room. Floodman graduated in 2006 with a degree in economics. In 2008 he earned his master’s degree in sports administration and has recently completed an MBA in finance. After graduating he joined Kansas Athletics in 2008 as an Associate Athletic Director for Development. His hobbies include reading, running and spending time with his wife, Erica.

On becoming Associate Athletic Director for Development at KU:
“After I graduated with an undergrad in economics, I went to grad school and got my Master’s in sports management and kind of was just bouncing around the department, working for the ticket office and licensing, and even worked with marketing for a couple months. Then I got the opportunity to do some fundraising stuff for the Williams Fund. I didn’t know a lot about the Williams Fund as a student-athlete, which I think is one of the things taught (to student-athletes) now. One of the things we’re working on now is educating individuals about the purpose of the Williams Fund. As soon as I understood the mission statement, it was something I was extremely passionate about. Having the opportunity to have a scholarship to the university, as a student athlete you never really understand where these scholarships come from. I get to be a part of the process of raising money to provide our student-athletes scholarships, work on capital campaigns and the stuff we are working on right now is a lot of fun. Doing all this I started working my way up. I was a grad assistant and I developed into an associate. Then, I went back and got my MBA in finance by taking night classes and stuff like that. So I’ve just been kind of working my way up and doing it that way.”

On his responsibilities as Associate Athletics Director of Development:
“My responsibilities are annual gifts and major gifts; we work with a lot of marketing, the expansion of our donor base, implementing policies and working with our marketing department selling tickets, or you name it. The gist [of my duties] is handling annual gifts and major gifts.”

On getting his MBA in finance and his reasoning for doing so:
“People don’t realize how much of a business athletics is. Having an undergrad in economics and a Master’s in sports management, I didn’t really understand the financial implications of a lot of the decision-making processes within athletics. Now as part of a 75-million dollar business, I’ve wanted to learn that aspect of it, so I decided to go back and take a lot of finance courses. That put me in a position to understand the financial side of the industry and hopefully at some point that will enable me to move up.”

On how his leadership skills as a player have transformed him into the man he is today:
“I think it is imperative these days to be able to motivate, to inspire, to want to get the most out of people, to efficiently get opinions and suggestions and implement all those things within your business. Working or being a football player; it’s the same thing. A football team is essentially a 115-person company. Everyone is working together to achieve the same objective: win football games or win a bowl game. Being a captain really enabled me to learn those leadership qualities, because you’re faced with unique situations as you go along. You may encounter players who aren’t doing things the right way. How do you address those issues internally? Those are the same things in business. You may have someone who isn’t reaching their goals when you know they have more potential than that. How do you go about solving these things? Being in a leadership position with the football team really enabled me to learn those traits and characteristics early on, so I could try to help get people put into a position where they can be successful. That absolutely translated right over to the corporate athletic world of fundraising.”

On what he misses most about playing at KU:
“I miss the competition. That’s the thing that you’re always searching for. Once you’re finished with it, it becomes a question of how can I fill that void. Fortunately, there is still competition for raising money and improving our ranking in the Big 12 Conference. So there are ways I fill that [void], but what I really miss most is just the camaraderie of your teammates. There is nothing better than waking up at 5:30 in the morning all summer long, and sweating; going through what you think is the most difficult part of your life with all your teammates. Then when you’re done, going out and being able to win football games together is the absolute best feeling in the world. I really just missing the hanging out, the camaraderie with guys like Nick Reid and Kevin Kane. We had a lot of fun together.”

On his favorite moment of his playing career:
“Going to bowl games was great and being able to win bowl games was great, but I would say the best moment was probably when we beat Nebraska at home to end their streak of beating us 37 years in a row. When people rushed the field after the game it was really put into perspective when a 75-year-olds came up to me and said, ‘Thank you so much, I never thought we were going to be them again in my lifetime, thanks for making me a happy man.’ You hear that passion that a lot of KU people have for their university and our football program and it makes you feel so good about enabling that individual to be able to celebrate with his kids, his family. Ending that streak really got us to the next level which I know we’ll get back to in the near future.”

On his future goals and plans:
“Once we get our football things going, we’re going to kick off a very big capital campaign for football. It’s not a secret, everybody knows about it; we’re removing the track and we’re obviously going to finalize the West Lawrence project that we’re working on. Really, I want to be a part of changing the culture and changing the atmosphere of Memorial Stadium. We’d like it to be more fan-friendly while creating an intimidating environment. Our fans are far away from the field with the track now and so I am excited and very, very motivated to help raise the money necessary to renovate our stadium.”