Patrick Kraft walked on and eventually earned a scholarship playing football at Indiana University, but as befits one of the youngest Division I athletic directors in America, it was also during his undergraduate years that he got hooked on the commercial side of sports.
It was a powerful enough attraction that Kraft went on to earn three degrees in sports management. "I was set on being an AD," he said.
His working career began with the AFL Chicago Rush. Not wanting to be typecast as a "football guy," he next took a job as business development director for the national governing body of synchronized swimming.