Michael Osborne, a part of the Johnson State College community for many years, has left the college for a new position in the private sector.

Osborne graduated from JSC in ‘98 with a B.A. in Health Science with a concentration in Physical Education. Since 2004, he has been assistant director of athletics, sports information director and coach of the Men’s Basketball team. “I’ve never worked in a place where somebody has been so well-respected and well-liked, I’d even say well-loved,” said Elaine Harvey, Assistant Director of External and Internal Information for the JSC Athletics and Recreation Department. “It’s not just athletics that Mike has impacted, he has really impacted Johnson as a whole and that has been really inspiring to be a part of.

“Mike has seen the department through incredible change. He has kind of been the constant in the department as it has been evolving. His biggest accomplishment is really how he has turned his passion for Johnson State Athletics into something really tangible. Even little things like archiving all of our stats so that our alumni are able to go online and see their senior year basketball stats, and things like that. He’s a hard worker and that has translated into what the department is today.”

Osborne has left the college for a new job closer to his home in South Burlington, which will enable him to focus more on his growing family. “The schedule for an athletics administrator and a coach is not typical,” said Osborne. “It has a lot of long nights and weekends in addition to the need to be here during daily office hours, so with those dynamics in mind, and another opportunity with a different company that became available, I just weighed everything out and decided that this was what was best for my family.”

Osborne will be working at Vermont Information Processing, a company he worked for in his mid-twenties but then left to pursue coaching. “I really enjoyed the culture of the company and they have been very successful in the 12 years I’ve been gone,” said Osborne.

For Director of Athletics and Recreation Jamey Ventura, Osborne’s departure means the loss of a key member of his department. “Mike has played a vital role in the growth, efficiency, and professionalism of the Department of Athletics and Recreation,” said Ventura. “Mike is a team guy and one of the hardest working people you will ever meet. He shows tremendous pride in his work and always places the college, department, and students’ goals ahead of his personal ones. He also has been a remarkable mentor for student athletes. It has been a pleasure to watch our students develop under his guidance.”

Osborne says his departure is definitely bittersweet and he will miss much of what has defined his professional life for the past dozen years. “The same things that are tough are the things I will miss the most: the long bus rides and getting home really late in the middle of a snow storm,” he said. “In the moment you don’t miss those things but I think about them right now and I know that I’ll miss them. I’ll miss hearing the guys laughing in the back of the bus about something silly, and just seeing the journey of recruitment, to enrollment, to student athlete, to graduation. Seeing that whole journey is probably what I will miss the most, along with the staff here. It’s going to be tough to replicate them, certainly.”