It's a late spring morning, and something caught Marvin Lewis' eye. 

The new George Mason assistant vice president and director of intercollegiate athletics was on campus well before his official start date, with plenty of things to learn and to do. One of them was a stop at the university's human resources office.

And there they were. One was a photo from Mason's 2006 men's basketball Final Four appearance. Another was a poster with a simple but meaningful message: "Wear your Mason gear --- we're all in."

It was just one of many reminders to Lewis that he's found the right place.

"Those types of things, starting with the president to the overall support from the university, that gets me excited," Lewis says.

There is a lot for the Patriots to be excited about as Lewis begins his tenure as the school's sixth athletic director in July. He knows the area, growing up across the Potomac in Germantown, Md. He possesses a high-profile athletic background, starting for four years at Georgia Tech and capping his career with a Final Four appearance with the Yellow Jackets.

He knows both the advantages and challenges of working at schools in a major metropolitan area, making stops at Georgia State, Maryland and Georgia Tech over the last 15 years. He had major responsibilities the last two years at Brown, where he served as the school's assistant vice president for athletics and recreation/chief operating officer.

And he's earned a reputation as an exceptional communicator who has firm command of the demands of college sports during a tumultuous era.

"You could put Marvin in a room with any kind of person and he's going to relate," former Army and Maryland athletic director Kevin Anderson says. "By the time they leave that room, they're going to say 'Wow, this guy is special.'"

Now he's at Mason, an opportunity that quickly landed on his radar when the athletic director job opened last year. He knew there was potential in Fairfax. He was familiar with the school growing up, and was even teammates with Jon Larranaga, the son of former Patriots basketball coach Jim Larranaga, during his high school days at St. John's at Prospect Hall.

He was tied to the school in other ways. Paul Hewitt, his college coach, later had a stint at Mason. During his time at Georgia Tech, he got to know Ángel Cabrera, the school's current president who served in the same role at George Mason.

And he knew, from all of his experiences, what he most wanted when he became an athletic director.

"Of course, you want to win championships, retain really good coaches and staff, and continue to build on our momentum," Lewis said. "And you've got to galvanize this community. It's a young university. The more we can bring connectivity to not only the Mason alumni base, but also to Northern Virginia and Fairfax, the better we'll be overall."

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Boomeranging back into athletics wasn't the original plan.

Lewis had an opportunity to play professionally, but he wanted to do something else. He graduated from Georgia Tech with a business degree with a certificate in accounting, and he wanted to prioritize growing his post-basketball career.

So he spent four years in public accounting in Atlanta before coming to a realization: He missed what he walked away from a few years earlier.

"I missed being undefeated, starting each year with excitement and hope," Lewis says. "I missed that. I realized that in public accounting, every time we went to lunch or dinner, we were talking about sports. Obviously, with my background, any clients I worked with, they wanted to talk about the Final Four and Georgia Tech."

One of his clients was Mary McElroy, who was Georgia Tech's supervisor for men's basketball during his playing days and in 2008 the athletic director across town at Georgia State. She helped create an opportunity that blended both his financial background, education and athletics in one job.

Easily the biggest task in front of him at Georgia State was the creation of a football program. Cheryl Levick became the athletic director in early 2009, and quips that all the Panthers' program had at the time was three coaches, two helmets and one athlete.

It was also a platform for Lewis to help solve problems and connect with every corner of a university.

"He's just a very proactive guy, a very unflappable strategic thinker," Levick says. "Every financial decision we had, Marvin was in the room. … He would work with everybody and we'd sit there and talk to a coach and say 'OK, we don't have enough money to do this. How do we do it?' And he'd come up with a creative way to figure it out on how to do it and talk to the right people on campus to get it done."

Those skills quickly made him particularly valuable when he moved on to Maryland, where he was a pivotal part of the long-term planning tied to the school's move to the Big Ten Conference as the school's associate athletic director for business.

"One of the things that was very impressive to me about Marvin, he was always asking questions and he was always striving to be better," Anderson says. "A lot of people will not admit or recognize that they don't have an answer. Not Marvin. He's going to make sure he has all the information and making great decisions and doing the right thing."

He remained two years before returning to Atlanta to become the chief financial officer of Georgia Tech athletics. He was part of a culture-changing administration that helped the Yellow Jackets jump from 89^th in the Learfield Cup standings the school year before arrived to 44^th when he departed for Brown.

Lewis' stint at the Ivy League school allowed him to add experience beyond finances. His duties included oversight of external operations and revenue generation, and like his time at Georgia Tech he was involved in supervising men's basketball.

"Anyone who takes any time to get to know him is going to realize how successful he was and what made him so successful," Brown men's basketball coach Mike Martin says. "He's got talent, he's smart. He's really good at working with people, he's really good at rolling his sleeves up and doing whatever he has to do to help."

His time in Providence included a flurry of activity. Over the last two years, Brown hired more than 100 people for various roles and also revamped its visual identity. Lewis was deeply involved in bolstering infrastructure to improve Brown's across-the-board competitiveness relative to its league peers.

That last part --- across the board --- that will be a priority at George Mason.

"I told the search committee, 'If you just want me to make basketball better, I'm not the one,' because I want to have a transformative experience for all student-athletes," Lewis says. "I want to win championships across the department and I get thrilled when I know we earned three this spring."

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So what constitutes success to Lewis? It starts with how the athletes the Patriots attract can reflect on their time at George Mason.

"I want our student-athletes to have transformational experiences," Lewis says. "That starts with graduating. That starts with competing for championships or at least games that matter, so that 30 years from now they can look back and say 'We played against this opponent, we played in a conference final, we competed for something that mattered.'"

That's what Mason's baseball, softball and women's track teams did in the spring, with each winning an Atlantic 10 title. Those accomplishments carry great value, but it's also little secret that the department's most visible team is a men's basketball program coming off a year in which it matched its highs for overall victories (20) and conference victories (11) since joining the Atlantic 10.

Now, Lewis believes, is a time for the Patriots to add to a history highlighted by the Final Four run he is often reminded of while also developing greater ties with the area.

"I love the fact Tony Skinn's here as our head coach because he is going to galvanize and connect the community," Lewis says. "But I also reference that 2006 was a long time ago, and I have a similar experience at Georgia Tech where our final four appearance in 2004 was a long time ago. How do we get the entire community on board with the future and not just focus on the past?"

A big portion of that is a partnership with Skinn, who played on the 2006 Final Four team and was hired as Mason's new coach this spring.

"Kim English did a great job of elevating the profile of George Mason and I think Tony now adds to that foundation," Lewis says. "We have to make sure he has the support around him as a first-time head coach because that's different --- him being a first-time head coach and me being a first-time AD. We've talked about doing it together and doing it in lockstep and building that plan and playbook together."

Lewis has a lot to draw from. His financial acumen might be more valuable than even in a college athletics landscape that has changed dramatically just in the last five years. His credibility as a former student-athlete lends him perspective on what a member of one of Mason's teams might be experiencing during their college careers.

And a well-rounded career to this point has provided extensive preparation for what he might face in Fairfax.

"It's not just athletically," Martin says. "It's in the classroom and it's in life. I think he'll be super in those ways. He's competitive, he wants to win, he'll help you grow and help you get better, and is interested in more than just the transactional type of relationships with student-athletes and coaches. He's really going to be invested in the people he works with."

Adds Levick: "Each step he's taken, he's added additional experiences, so his breadth of experience is outstanding. George Mason is really fortunate. I think he's the right person at the right time and I think it'll be a beautiful match."

Over his first 90 days, Lewis says he plans to do plenty of listening, learning and leading. He knows there are some vital decisions to be made in his first six months that will set the course for his tenure. Former colleagues rave about his collaborative nature, and Lewis makes it a point to begin e-mails to his staff with the words "Hey team."

That's the foundation of what he hopes Mason's athletic department can accomplish in the years to come.

"I recognize I'm just one person and I'm not going to solve all the problems in the first six months and it's going to take everyone in the department to rally behind making Mason better," Lewis says. "I want to hear their ideas. I want to hear their approaches. The more they can be involved in our decision-making, student-athletes included, I think the more everyone can get excited to move us forward."