NASHVILLE, Tenn.

As president of Vanderbilt University and four other prominent schools before that, Gordon Gee perceived an unhappy trend: Student-athletes were drifting away from the core of university life. They lived, ate and studied in a jock bubble.

Sure, most went to class. But they missed out on virtually every other important college experience, from studying abroad to Greek life.

Five years ago this week, Gee decided he'd had enough. At loggerheads with his athletic director, he summoned his top administrators and stunned them with the news: He planned to disband Vanderbilt's athletic department, and fold it into the division of student life.

The reaction was immediate. Reporters figured Vanderbilt was giving up on competing in the powerful Southeastern Conference. Some alumni fumed. Smart alecks gibed that coaches would be renting canoes and refereeing intramurals in the offseason.

But nobody's laughing now.

Today, the SEC's smallest and only private university and the only one without an official, full-time athletic director is enjoying unprecedented on-field success, from high-profile sports like basketball and baseball down to tennis and even the 2007 NCAA champion bowling squad.

Even the Commodores football team, who've had a losing record every season for the last quarter-century, won five games last year and moved to 2-0 this season with a 24-17 upset over No. 24 South Carolina on Thursday night.

Off the field, the average GPA for student-athletes last spring rose to 3.1, narrowing the gap with other students, while Vanderbilt's NCAA graduation success rate was a conference-best 94 percent.

But Vanderbilt says the real success is an athletics program that is no longer viewed as an appendage, a side business for entertaining students and donors. And Gee's vision that if the whole university is responsible for the athletic program, everyone invests more to make sure it succeeds shows signs of taking hold.