Cute or ironic that the thing most bash him about, he just won an award for? The award-
"The Organizational Leadership Award is designed to honor organizational leaders who have demonstrated outstanding commitments to promoting compliance within their organizations and on a national level"
I would say that is a pretty damn strong endorsement to everything he has changed within the dept since the tatgate shit.
I disagree. Obviously the Media is a bunch of FOIA hounds when it comes to OSU (including the Dispatch who sends 100's of requests to OSU weekly). Him commenting on everything was just getting ahead of the media shitstorm that would come with anything released FOIA. If he hadn't, people would be sitting here saying "why are they just letting ESPN run with this shit?". He has a background in Marketing and it shows. He tries to market the brand by dictating the press. Not unheard of.
Gene Smith is such a good fiscal hawk that he grew the Athletic Department into one of the country's largest net givers. The dept. has been self sufficient for quite a while now, but the amount he gives back to the University is outstanding. Like I said, I think OSU would be hard pressed to find someone as good as him.