Phillips passionate about his families, the Huskies, athletics and Chicago

DeKALB - In his heart, new Northern Illinois University athletics director Jim Phillips never left his hometown. Sure, the chronological stops on his impressive vita sheet read the University of Illinois, Arizona State University, the University of Tennessee, and, most recently, the University of Notre Dame. A product of a middle class family in the Portage Park neighborhood on the northwest side of Chicago, Phillips is back home. In essence, it's a Chicagoan leading the 17-sport Huskie intercollegiate athletics program at a Chicago area school. "That's why (being at) Northern Illinois makes so much sense to me," Phillips said. "I'm home. That's critically important to me. I'm a product of my experience and environment. Chicago will always be my home. It's the greatest city in the world. Basically, every vacation I've ever taken is back to Chicago." If you ask, Phillips will proudly talk about his parents - his father John, a retired design engineer who is 89 years old and living in the same house where his 10 children were raised, or his late mother Anita, or his wife, the former Laura Hayes of suburban Des Plaines and their four children. Being from a large family environment, Phillips looks at student-athletes as an extended family. "Our top priority is enhancing the student-athlete experience," he said. "We need to create a platform for them to grow academically, athletically, and socially. Social growth and community service is important. Strong academic and athletics performance as well as the opportunity to grow socially is our ultimate concern for our student-athletes. We're responsible for that." If you ask, he might talk about his passion for Chicago area teams - his beloved Cubbies, Ernie Banks, Billy Williams, Ron Santo, and those long-ago summers of a 75-cent grandstand ticket or being the youngest Phillips family member at the old SRO Chicago Stadium on 1800 West Madison in the days of Blackhawk greats Bobby Hull and Stan Mikita, or sitting in the stands as a teenager at Huskie Stadium and watching head coach Bill Mallory's Northern Illinois team clinch the 1983 Mid-American Conference title by beating Ohio University, 41-17, in the regular-season finale. How does one get from Our Lady of Victory Grammar School and Weber High School to athletics director at one of the nation's 117 major football institutions? For Phillips, the process began as a student assistant in the athletics department at Illinois during 1988-90. Phillips followed his love for basketball to Arizona State where he served under men's head coach Bill Freder as a graduate student and as restricted earning coach during a period when the Sun Devils went to the postseason five straight years - including a "Sweet 16" berth and a 24-9 campaign in 1994-95. In addition, Phillips assisted with the United States men's basketball entry in the 1996 Goodwill Games. Enter new ASU athletics director Kevin White. During the 1997-98 school year, Phillips found a new niche as an athletic development officer for White at Arizona State where he worked with the annual giving program and the program's $35 million capital campaign for facilities. "It was one of those career decisions, I wanted to go into administration," Phillips recalled. "Was it stay in coaching or be an administrator? At that very moment, I knew I wanted to be an athletics director." Then Tennessee called - where he would eventually meet future Northern Illinois president John Peters who served as the provost - and Phillips went into overdrive. As an assistant athletic director at UT, he directed a $12.4 million annual athletics giving program and wound up being directly responsible for identifying, cultivating, and soliciting all major gifts and donations for the Volunteer athletic program. He also aided in originating the first-ever capital campaign for athletics at Tennessee that would raise $50 million for endowments, facilities, and programs. When White became AD at Notre Dame, he asked Phillips to rejoin him in South Bend. "What a tremendous opportunity that was at Notre Dame for me and my family," Phillips said. "When Kevin called, I told him I would walk all the way from Knoxville to South Bend." In four years with the Fighting Irish, he would eventually climb the ladder to senior associate director of athletics for external affairs. During 2002-03, he - in conjunction with the university's Central Development - helped launch the Rockne Heritage Fund, which would become the first-ever athletics annual fund that directly benefited student-athlete grant-in-aide scholarships. At the same time, Phillips was an integral part in the funding of a new $22-million, 96,000-square foot athletics facility - currently under construction - that would house all facets of the football program, plus strength and conditioning areas and a sports medicine and rehabilitation center for Notre Dame's 26 varsity sports and approximately 800 student-athletes. At ND, Phillips directed all phases of the entire athletics community relations program - including VIP events and recognition programs - and helped develop new institutional and department advancement programs. He also oversaw all aspects of the athletics ticket office. In addition, he worked with the sponsors of the Kevin White Radio Show that appears weekly on WMVP-AM (ESPN Radio) in Chicago and the Midwest. His sports assignments included men's soccer, women's rowing, and women's golf, as well as aiding White with men's basketball and serving as the program contact person for football bowl representatives. Phillips graduated from Illinois with a bachelor of science degree in kinesiology. He earned a master's of education degree in administration from Arizona State in 1992 and currently working on a doctorate in educational administration and policy studies from Tennessee. He and his wife have four children - Luke, five years old; Madeline, 3 1/2; Meredith, 2; and John, four months. Laura Phillips graduated from Illinois in 1989 and received an MBA from DePaul University in 1993.