Byron Hatch ’98 has been named the chief operating officer of the College Football Playoff. Photo courtesy of Byron Hatch.
It’s great career advice: “Be an uncommon person.” University of Central Arkansas alumnus Byron Hatch ‘98 lived by the saying, building his career as a tax accountant, a lawyer, and a collegiate athletics administrator. Now, he is the new chief operating officer of the College Football Playoff.
Hatch has worked in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the University of Arkansas Athletic Department, and the Southeastern Conference since graduating from UCA in 1998 with an accounting degree. While he may not have always known he’d work in athletics, he never doubted that his degree would take him somewhere.
“I chose to major in accounting because of my parents,” he said. “My dad worked for many years at Riceland in the corporate headquarters. He would wear a suit and a tie every day, and I just knew I wanted to follow that business route.”
Hatch first visited UCA as a high school student from Humphrey, Arkansas. He attended a Boys State conference on campus when he learned about the university, but a second visit during homecoming sealed his fate.
“That year, an African American woman named Gwendolyn LaShawn Barron was selected as homecoming queen,” he said. “That made an impression on me about what the school represented and helped make the decision pretty easy.”
Hatch took advantage of a wide range of opportunities and experiences while at UCA. Along with being a member of the Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity and the Students for the Propagation of Black Culture, he took advantage of the Diversity and Community office. Known then as Minority Affairs, the campus resource offered programming for incoming first-year students that provided him a sense of belonging. He credited its activities and mentorship of staff members for getting him on a good start academically.
When he attended in the late 1990s, the College of Business was then housed in Burdick Hall. He found that he enjoyed accounting the most and took more classes. This was followed by internships with several area businesses: Virco, Stephens Inc., and Alltel.
It was during his senior year that he thought more about what he was going to do with his career.
“I didn’t quite have an idea what I wanted to do long term,” he said. “I had good grades, and my parents encouraged me to go get a graduate degree. I decided to go to law school. I never thought about practicing law. I settled on tax law because it seemed to be the closest thing to my accounting education.”
During his first year of law school, he met with the dean as part of a mentoring initiative. The meetings were meant to help students make decisions about their careers. Their conversation turned to Hatch’s passion for sports, and the dean suggested that he pursue a career in athletics. At first, Hatch didn’t think of that as an option, as he never played collegiate athletics and had no intentions of being a coach.
“The dean began to tell me about careers in sports administration and a friend who was the athletic director at Brigham Young University,” Hatch said. “That’s the first time it dawned on me about athletic departments and this whole world outside of players and coaches. I was never exposed to it.”
After law school, Hatch began applying to openings in university athletic departments. He always received the same response that he had a solid educational background but not the professional one to get a job in collegiate athletics. While working for accounting firms in Houston, Texas, he decided to volunteer at a university to gain the experience to break into the industry. He volunteered in Texas Southern University’s athletic department in rules compliance, where the athletic director believed his knowledge in tax law was a natural fit.
A year later, he gained a position at the NCAA, ultimately enjoying a stint in the Division I men’s basketball staff. While there, he helped manage the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, culminating in the national championship.
“I sat with the selection committee, providing data analysis to help them decide on which teams should be in the tournament,” Hatch said. “I helped develop the bracket and would hand it to the CBS producer for the CBS Selection Show. The bracket for those years came from my computer and then went out to millions.”
Now serving with the College Football Playoff, Hatch will manage operations, oversee site selection, and aid the selection committee. He says building relationships and collaborating is critical to his role — a skill that he developed at UCA.
“No one knows everything,” he said. “You will be successful if you have other people in your corner that can help you identify your blind spots and your weaknesses and help support you. Where you bring your strengths to the table, somebody else brings another set of strengths to the table to help accomplish a goal.”
Hatch encourages students today to not limit themselves and to try new things.
“Be uncommon,” he said. “It is easy to be the one who just goes to college, sits at the back of the classroom, and not take initiative. But to be an uncommon person is to go there, take the initiative, and try to do everything the right way at all times. Get outside of your comfort zone, and you will be amazed at what you can learn and accomplish.”
