National Football Foundation

Many years ago, NCAA Vice President of Championships and Alliances Dennie Poppe was asked by his father what his job at college sport’s governing body entailed. Poppe’s father, a farmer from central Illinois, knew what a hard day’s work was because he plowed and tended fields to support his family.

“He never could quite understand athletics and all of that, but he understood what a scholarship was,” said Poppe, who was on a football grant-in-aid at Missouri more than 40 years ago. “I told him I run athletic events. I travel around the country, and I work with coaches. And I work with football. He finally looked at me and he said, ‘You have been on scholarship your whole life, haven’t you?’”

Thrust into an administrative role under Hall of Fame coach Dan Devine at Missouri after starring at safety on the Tigers’ 1968 Gator Bowl and 1970 Orange Bowl teams, the 6-4, 225-pound Poppe was greatly influenced by his mentor. He admits he might not have even considered athletics administration as a profession if Devine had not asked him to stay on as a graduate assistant, a job that eventually led him to becoming a Missouri assistant athletics director.

Poppe left Columbia for a job in championships at the NCAA. He told his boss he would stay no more than three years with the organization, which was then based in the Kansas City area.

“Obviously, I did stay longer and had some opportunities along the way to move and take some other positions,” Poppe said. “Some were offered and some were not granted that I applied for. I look back and sometimes the best unanswered prayers are your best ones.”

Eventually, in 1987, he took over as director of the I-AA Playoffs and the College Men’s World Series. His management catapulted the World Series to such financial successes in Omaha, it led to the recent building of a new 24,000-seat baseball stadium, TD Ameritrade Park Omaha, and a long-term agreement to keep the finals there.

Despite his close association with baseball and other NCAA championships such as golf, skiing and tennis, Poppe has been involved in football the longest — at some level since he arrived at the NCAA in 1974. First, it was Division III football championships, then Division II, and in 1987 the Division I-AA (now the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision) championships, which he has overseen for more than a quarter of a century. Under his watch the Division I FCS tournament field will expand in 2013 a second time to 24 teams, up from 16 in 2009.

“I think we have run some outstanding championships and provided some excellent post-season opportunities for those teams that wouldn't have a bowl like (they) do in the Football Bowl Subdivision,” Poppe said. “And the opportunity to earn it on the field has always been a key. There is no computer. There is nobody anointing you.”

Another area of Poppe’s football work with the NCAA has been in the legislative arena. He has served as the NCAA’s primary liaison on various committees, including football issues, football playing rules and post-season bowl certification.

“The relationship we were able to build with the American Football Coaches Association (AFCA) was as good as any other coaching association the NCAA has,” Poppe said. “I think it has been helpful to the sport, particularly controls over spring football, and some ideas and regulations on summer conditioning, and some sanity to recruiting.”

Last spring, Poppe found out he had won the NFF’s 2013 Outstanding Contribution to Amateur Football Award during an AFCA Board of Trustees meeting in Arizona when NFF President and CEO Steve Hatchell addressed the group.

“I am listening to the people who have received it, and I thought that is a pretty impressive award,” Poppe recalled. “I wonder who is going to get that this year ... Then he says, ‘The 2013 Award winner is Dennie Poppe!’ I about spit my coffee out or whatever it was. I was kind of at a loss for words ... I had never put myself in that category of one who would be recognized like that.”