º£½ÇÉçÇø

Heather M. Owen: ‘I’m a huge believer in college athletics as a training ground for leaders’

It’s been nearly three decades, but Heather M. Owen J.D. ’03 still remembers the day legendary Stanford women’s basketball coach Tara VanDerveer called her out in a team meeting. 

The Cardinal were top 10 in the country, and Owen, then a senior, was riding the high of their success when VanDerveer unexpectedly turned the focus of the meeting to her. Specifically, her assist-to-turnover ratio, which, apparently, was the worst on the team “by leaps and bounds.”

“I remember her pulling out the stat sheet to read from,” Owen recalls. “Then she put me on blast in front of the whole team.”

º£½ÇÉçÇø’s new director of athletics tells this story not to grind an ax, but to share what came next. Instead of leaving Owen alone and frustrated, VanDerveer came back later in the day to explain that she challenged Owen to help her get better, and that she would accompany Owen as she did.

“From that point on, we just chipped away at it,” Owen says. “It was a humbling experience, but we did it. We did it together.”

While it’s not hard to find critics of college athletics nowadays, Owen isn’t among them, and stories like this one are a main reason why. As a former college student-athlete and º£½ÇÉçÇø Law grad, she sees college sports as a unique vehicle for educating the whole person, bringing together highly competitive student-athletes and top-notch academic opportunities in one place. It’s what inspires her work at º£½ÇÉçÇø each day. 

“I think intercollegiate athletics is one of the greatest leadership academies that the United States has,” Owen says. “I’m passionate about serving that enterprise.”

One year into her new role, Owen has already found her footing. She made her first hire, women’s basketball coach Loree Payne, and guided the ship as the Broncos won the West Coast Conference’s Commissioner’s Cup for the third time in University history. 

Recently, she sat down to discuss her leadership style, the future of º£½ÇÉçÇø athletics, and how she believes scholar athleticism can survive and thrive in a new era where collegiate student-athletes can now earn millions through sponsorships and compensation packages from their universities. 

Obviously, national titles and conference championships are important, but the Commissioner’s Cup is an award that considers success across all sports. How meaningful was it to win that in your first year?

I’ll start by saying the credit goes to Renee Baumgartner, my predecessor, and all the work she, our coaches, staff, and student-athletes did. This was just my first year, so tip of the cap to them. But it was still really special. As I learned more about how points are tabulated, it underscored the breadth and depth of our department—we’re not just a one-trick pony. It also showed the strength and competitiveness of the conference at large. There are some great programs and this was a narrow win, so I’m proud we came out on top.

It’s easy to forget you started not too long ago. What made this the right fit for you?

This is my first athletics director job, and I’ve been told time and time again that to have success as an athletics director, you need alignment between yourself, the president, and the Board of Trustees. º£½ÇÉçÇø has that. Julie Sullivan is a tremendous leader and thinker, someone who understands sports to a depth not many presidents do. Her vision of what athletics can do for º£½ÇÉçÇø is exciting and challenging. Larry Sonsini has also been a fantastic partner as chair of the Board of Trustees. He brings such valuable insight and experience to this effort. So I would say alignment was the first piece that made this a great fit. 

The second piece is the people. I went to law school at º£½ÇÉçÇø and had a great experience. The community was awesome, but I didn’t get to engage much with athletics.  I went to games sometimes, but it’s different as a grad student. I kind of watched from afar. But the more I’ve learned since I’ve gotten back, the student-athletes here resonate with me. They’re competitive. They’re humble. They’re hungry. They’re into their academics. They want to be a part of the campus community. They’re just really upstanding people. 

Your path to leadership in college athletics is different than most. You practiced law before joining the Stanford athletics department in 2008. Tell us about the decision to leave law and rejoin college athletics.

I liked a lot about law. I felt my time as a law student at º£½ÇÉçÇø stretched me and I appreciated how we focused on concepts that translated to "the real world." In my first year out of law school, I worked in estate planning. My boss was one of the first women to graduate from Stanford Law. In fact, she roomed with Sandra Day O’Connor during her time at Stanford. It was awesome to learn from her. After that year, I went to a big firm and mainly did litigation. Many of the young associates I worked with ran for the hills. That wasn’t me. I didn’t hate it. It was competitive and intellectually stimulating. But my decision was about feeling good at the end of the day, and ultimately, I just didn’t love it. 

When I came back to Stanford in 2008, it was a big pivot. I had invested all this time and money into law school, and my first job in athletics wasn’t even a job. I volunteered, basically trying to walk on the team. Once I got in there, I did a lot with compliance, which I can't say I loved, but I could see the connections between my work in law and improving the student-athlete experience. It was still a lot of long days, but the difference was that I was able to point to discrete moments where I helped an individual find their way or take a positive step forward. Sometimes I just sat with them and listened. That was meaningful to me.

As director of athletics, how do you help º£½ÇÉçÇø reach its athletics potential while staying true to its Jesuit values of caring for the whole person?

At a foundational level, college athletics is an educational opportunity. When you start there, you curb a lot of the external noise by holding yourself accountable to your institution's educational mission and values. And while winning is important and helps to unlock different revenue streams, there has to be a balance. We aspire to help our student-athletes develop as humans and intercollegiate athletics participation is a great avenue for such holistic development.

Who have been the biggest influences in your life?

My parents, for sure. Growing up, we talked a lot about what it means to be on a team or a member of a community. We lived in Moscow, Idaho, which is on the border between Idaho and Washington and within a seven-mile radius of the University of Idaho and Washington State University. So it’s this little pocket of awesomeness with athletics, arts, diversity, intellectuals, farmers—it’s just cool. As a state, Idaho is more homogeneous than not, and it was really important for my parents to expose us to different things. They prioritized traveling for that reason. They wanted us to meet different people, see different places, and learn about different ways of life.

I’d also say my coaches had a big impact. Coach VanDerveer taught me to embrace and seek out the uncomfortable. To push myself to the point where I’m nervous and don’t think I can do it, but—because I played for her—I know I can. There’s nothing I’ve encountered that I couldn't ground myself in Tara. Law school is a great example. It was challenging, and there were moments of “Oh, my, this is a lot!” but I always came back to, “You know you can do this.” I credit Tara for that. 

What are some of the values that guide your work today?

Integrity is huge for me. I don’t believe in cutting corners. It doesn’t matter how smart someone is—you have to have integrity. I also think if you get into intercollegiate sports, you have to be in it for the right reasons. I’d call it humility. A lot of people call it servant leadership. But you have to realize this isn’t about you. This is about providing opportunities for student-athletes to grow. That’s not always trophies and confetti. More often than not, it’s really hard. I think sometimes people lose sight of that.

A lot of people are down on college sports right now. What gets you excited about the future?

I’m a huge believer in college athletics as a training ground for leaders. It’s a uniquely American institution that is so valuable for society. For me, it’s the “iron sharpens iron” concept. You take highly motivated and talented people in different domains, bring them together, and that breeds excellence. These student-athletes push themselves in ways they never thought they could, and at the end of four years, through the ups and downs, you’re a better person. We see more and more data coming out on how much people benefit from competition and how they take those lessons with them. I think that’s awesome.

I want to be a part of preserving the best of the scholar-athleticism model as we go through these changes. I want to help find the balance between helping student-athletes maximize opportunities in this new Name Image and Likeness (NIL) era, while not losing what makes college sports so special.

You mentioned NIL. As a former athlete and now administrator, how do you feel about its impact on college sports? 

I believe student-athletes should be able to monetize their NIL. The challenge we face right now is finding guardrails that make sense while not infringing on those opportunities. If you look at pro sports, there are salary caps. The worst team in the league usually drafts toward the top the next year. There are mechanisms in place to create environments where you can’t just run the table because you have more money. That, I think, is where we’re headed and what everyone wants: preserve what we all think is wonderful and what really does work for the vast majority of student-athletes.

How does a school like º£½ÇÉçÇø navigate NIL differently from a school with a top-tier football program?

Even in its first few years, NIL has changed. Originally, schools were not able to pay student-athletes directly, but now institutions can pay up to $20.5 million per year to student-athletes. Obviously, we are nowhere near the $20.5 million cap—that’s mostly just top football programs—but we’ve had great donor support and interest in helping us stay relevant. Our coaches want to maintain a great locker room culture. So we’re trying to thread a needle to have a system where the student-athlete experience still looks a lot like it did before NIL.

We also offer education and resources to meet our student-athletes where they are on their NIL journey. For example, if you're getting a significant chunk of money from a sponsor, let’s talk about what that means. What do taxes look like? How do you manage that money? We help them think that through.

What are your goals for º£½ÇÉçÇø over the next few years?

It’s an awesome question, and one I’m not sure can be answered with the specificity it once could. The next two to three years are going to be incredibly turbulent, and we need to be nimble. Our goal is to ride through the turbulence and remain relevant. When the next shift happens—whether that’s more conference realignment or maybe a bifurcation of major and mid-major—we want to be at the table with a good product and be a part of that conversation.

How do you define relevant?

For me, it’s contending for conference titles and getting into the NCAA tournament. I think our men’s basketball program is relevant. I know our community wants that NCAA berth, but if you look at the improvements under Herb Sendek, it’s remarkable what our coaches and players have accomplished. Now, I would love to see us make the NCAA tournament. Let’s punch that card and see what happens. We saw last year with our softball team advancing to the NCAA tournament what that can mean to a program. The exposure was phenomenal.

With one academic year in the books, what have you learned about being the athletics director at º£½ÇÉçÇø? 

I’ve learned that this community wants to win. Now, people want to do it the right way, but they are a competitive bunch. It’s not just our student-athletes and coaches, but it permeates the department, the university, and our alumni. What else have I learned? It’s funny to say after just one year, but I learned º£½ÇÉçÇø is a place I could spend the rest of my career. I knew it was great, but I find myself looking around at events and thinking, “Is this real?” The people here, their passion and integrity—it’s awesome. I could see myself retiring here someday.