![]() | |
Current position | |
---|---|
Title | Athletic director |
Team | Wake Forest |
Conference | ACC |
Biographical details | |
Born | Chapel Hill, North Carolina, U.S. | April 1, 1971
Alma mater | Wake Forest University (1993) University of Tennessee (2003) |
Administrative career (AD unless noted) | |
1998–2000 | Wake Forest (asst. AD) |
2000–2009 | Tennessee (exec. assoc. AD) |
2009–2017 | Kansas State |
2017 | Tennessee |
2019–present | Wake Forest |
Accomplishments and honors | |
Awards | |
Knoxville News Sentinel 40 under 40, 2008 Sports Business Journal 40 under 40, 2011 Under Armour AD of the Year, 2013 Bobby Dodd AD Award, 2013 | |
John Angus Lauchlin Currie (born April 1, 1971) is a college athletics administrator, currently serving as the vice president and director of athletics at Wake Forest University. [1] Prior to his post at Wake Forest, Currie held the position of Vice Chancellor and director of athletics at the University of Tennessee from February 28, 2017, until December 1, 2017. [2]
Currie earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in history with a minor in politics from Wake Forest University in 1993 and a Master of Science degree in sport management from the University of Tennessee in 2003. [3]
Currie began his professional career at Wake Forest in 1993 as a Deacon Club intern before he was appointed assistant Deacon Club director in 1994 (a position he held until 1997). After a two-year stint as Assistant Athletics Director at Wake Forest, Currie joined the University of Tennessee in 1997 as executive director of its Athletic Scholarship Fund. [4] Currie served as Executive Associate Athletic Directory at University of Tennessee until 2009. [5] He also served on the NCAA Division I Administrative Cabinet from 2010 to 2015, and became a Life Member of the Fiesta Bowl Board of Directors. [6] From 2009 to 2017 Currie was the athletic director of Kansas State University. [7] In 2017, Currie rejoined Tennessee but as an athletic director. [8] In 2018, it was announced that he had joined the Columbia University's Sports Management graduate program as a professor. [5] In 2019, Currie became the athletic director of Wake Forest. [9]
Currie administered K-State Athletics' projected $71 million budget, managed 165 employees, and maintained relations with 450 student athletes. He had cultivated relationships with alumni and donors, and his department projected a $4.4 million budget increase for the 2016 fiscal year. During Currie's tenure, the school's athletics budget has increased by $26 million over its 2010 budget of $44.1 million to $73 million. KSU's athletics budget has had a surplus for six consecutive years. [10]
The university invested $190 million in new and upgraded facilities, including the West Stadium Center at Bill Snyder Family Stadium and a basketball training venue. In May 2015, a new football complex was under construction which was scheduled to open in September. [11] In a letter to supporters dated June 30, 2015, Currie wrote that the KSU athletics department's first goal was to provide "A World-Class Student-Athlete Experience". [12]
In October 2014, Currie asked the KSU Athletic Board of Directors to discontinue Women's Equestrian and replace it with Women's Soccer to maintain Title IX compliance for the university. Based on Currie's recommendation, K-State Athletic Board of Directors approved eliminating Women's Equestrian and replacing it with Women's Soccer. [13] However, the NCAA ultimately tabled their committee's recommendation, making no changes to Women's Equestrian and its relationship with the NCAA. [14]
Currie took over as athletic director on February 28, 2017. [8] Currie was dismissed on December 1, 2017, related to agreeing to terms with then Ohio State defensive coordinator Greg Schiano to be the school's next head football coach. The Schiano recruitment led to a large protest by fans claiming Schiano had involvement in a Penn State scandal during his time on the Penn State coaching staff, but Schiano has been cleared of any wrongdoing by officials from both Penn State and Ohio State. [15] Tennessee received criticism from national sportswriters for a perceived overreactive response to social media. [16] [17] Currie later had a deal in place to hire Mike Leach, [18] however the deal never came to be because of changes in UT’s administration. [19] Phillip Fulmer organized a “palace coup”, [20] [21] replacing John Currie as AD and ultimately hired Jeremy Pruitt as head football coach. [22] According to the Knoxville News Sentinel, Fulmer "wormed his way into the athletics director job after sabotaging the coaching search by former AD John Currie in 2017." [23]
While at Tennessee in 2017, Currie hired baseball coach Tony Vitello, who went on to lead the Vols to three college world series appearances in his first seven years. [24]
Currie became Wake Forest's sixth athletic director in school history when he was named to the position on March 3, 2019. Currie is just the third individual to have held the position since 1964 following the 28-year tenure of Gene Hooks (1964–92) and 27-year tenure of Ron Wellman (1992–2019). [25]
Currie led Wake Forrest through the only major basketball change in the 2020 pandemic year. Currie hired Steve Forbes who was named 2022 ACC Coach of the year. [26] Wake Forest recently promoted Currie, adding vice president duties to his existing Director of Athletics role. [27]
Currie was announced winner of Sports Business Journal Forty Under 40 awards in 2011. [6] As an athletic director, he fundraised more than $100 million from private donors, which made a record of receiving private gifts of $50 million at Tennessee in 2008 and $60 million at K-State in 2014. [6] At Tennessee as Executive Associate Athletic Director, Currie was among Knoxville business' "40 under 40". [28] After the Kansas State Wildcats won or shared Big 12 Conference championships in football, men's basketball and baseball in the 2012–13 academic year, Currie was honored as one of four 2013 Under Armour Athletic Directors of the Year by the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics. [29] [30] He has been nationally recognized as a NACDA Athletic Director of the Year again in 2022. [31]
An athletic director is an administrator at many American clubs or institutions, such as colleges and universities, as well as in larger high schools and middle schools, who oversees the work of coaches and related staff involved in athletic programs.
Bill Snyder Family Stadium is a stadium in Manhattan, Kansas. It is used for American football, and is the home field of the Kansas State University Wildcats football team. It is named after the family of head coach Bill Snyder. Over the past 31 seasons – from 1990 through the 2022 season – K-State is 169–51–1 (.767) at home.
Phillip Edward Fulmer Sr. is a former American football player, coach, and athletic director at the University of Tennessee. He served as head coach of the Tennessee Volunteers football team from 1992 to 2008, compiling a 152–52 record. He is best known for coaching the Volunteers in the first BCS National Championship Game in 1998, defeating the Florida State Seminoles. Fulmer was the Volunteers' 22nd head football coach.
The Kansas State Wildcats are the intercollegiate athletic teams that represent Kansas State University. The official color of the teams is Royal Purple; white and silver are generally used as complementary colors.
John Terrill Majors was an American professional football player and college coach. A standout halfback at the University of Tennessee, he was an All-American in 1956 and a two-time winner of the Southeastern Conference Most Valuable Player award, in 1955 and 1956. He finished second to Paul Hornung in voting for the Heisman Trophy in 1956. After playing one season in the Canadian Football League (CFL), Majors became a college assistant coach. He served as the head coach at Iowa State University (1968–1972), the University of Pittsburgh, and Tennessee (1977–1992), compiling a career college football record of 185–137–10. His 1976 Pittsburgh squad won a national championship after capping a 12–0 season with a victory in the Sugar Bowl. Majors was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame as a player in 1987.
Gregory Edward Schiano is an American football coach. He is the head football coach at Rutgers University, a position he held from 2001 to 2011 and resumed before the 2020 season. Schiano has the most wins in program history as the head football coach of Rutgers Scarlet Knights football. He also served as the head coach for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers of the National Football League (NFL) from 2012 to 2013.
The Wake Forest Demon Deacons are the intercollegiate athletic teams that represent Wake Forest University, located in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. They compete at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I level as a member of the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC).
Kennesaw State University (KSU) is a public research university in the state of Georgia with two campuses in the Atlanta metropolitan area, one in Kennesaw and the other in Marietta on a combined 581 acres (235 ha) of land. The school was founded in 1963 by the Georgia Board of Regents using local bonds and a federal space-grant during a time of major Georgia economic expansion after World War II. KSU also holds classes at the Cobb Galleria Centre, Dalton State College, and in Paulding County (Dallas). The total enrollment exceeds 45,000 students making KSU the third-largest university by enrollment in Georgia.
The Florida–Tennessee football rivalry, also called the Third Saturday in September, is an American college football rivalry between the Florida Gators football team of the University of Florida and Tennessee Volunteers football team of the University of Tennessee, who first met on the football field in 1916. The Gators and Vols have competed in the same athletic conference since Florida joined the now-defunct Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association in 1910, and the schools were founding members of the Southeastern Conference in 1932. Despite this long conference association, a true rivalry did not develop until the early 1990s due to the infrequency of earlier meetings; in the first seventy-six years (1916–91) of the series, the two teams met just twenty-one times. The Southeastern Conference (SEC) expanded to twelve universities and split into two divisions in 1992. Florida and Tennessee were placed in the SEC's East Division and have met on a home-and-home basis every season since. Their rivalry quickly blossomed in intensity and importance in the 1990s and early 2000s as both programs regularly fielded national championship contending teams under coaches Phil Fulmer of Tennessee and Steve Spurrier at Florida.
The East Tennessee State Buccaneers are the 16 intercollegiate athletics teams that represent East Tennessee State University (ETSU), located in Johnson City, Tennessee. ETSU's teams include men and women's basketball, cross country, golf, soccer, tennis, and track and field; women's-only softball and volleyball; and men's-only baseball and football. The Buccaneers compete at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I level as a member of the Southern Conference (SoCon).
Lew Perkins was an American athletic director. He ended his 40-year career at the University of Kansas (KU), having joined in June 2003, taking over for Al Bohl. Perkins previously held similar positions with the University of Connecticut, University of Maryland, College Park, Wichita State University and University of South Carolina Aiken where he gained a reputation for successfully cleaning up schools suffering under NCAA violations. Under Perkins direction, the athletics program at KU had several successful seasons, including winning the 2008 Orange Bowl in football and the 2008 men's basketball championship. His tenure, though, ultimately ended in scandal and early retirement in 2010.
The Kentucky State Thorobreds and Thorobrettes are the intercollegiate athletic teams that represent Kentucky State University, located in Frankfort, Kentucky, in intercollegiate sports at the Division II level of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). The Thorobreds and Thorobrettes are members of the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SIAC), which they have competed since the 1997–98 academic year. Kentucky State previously competed in the Great Lakes Valley Conference (GLVC) from 1989–90 to 1993–94. KSU's main rivals are Tennessee State University, West Virginia State University, and Central State University.
Jeremy Pruitt is an American football coach who most recently was a senior defensive assistant for the New York Giants of the National Football League (NFL). He previously served as the head coach at the University of Tennessee from 2018 to 2020 and defensive coordinator at the University of Alabama from 2016 to 2017, University of Georgia from 2014 to 2015, and Florida State University in 2013.
Daniel J. White is an American university sports administrator. He is the athletic director for the Tennessee Volunteers. White held the same position at the University at Buffalo from 2012 to 2015 and the University of Central Florida from 2015 to 2021. Prior to his tenure at Buffalo, he was the senior associate athletic director for Ole Miss.
The Tennessee Volunteers football team represents the University of Tennessee in American football.
Desireé Don Reed-Francois is an American attorney and college athletics administrator who became the athletic director at the University of Arizona on March 3, 2024. She has more than two-and-half decades of experience in intercollegiate athletics, including overseeing the external operations for several institutions.
Forrest Gene Taylor is an American university sports administrator, currently serving as the athletic director at Kansas State University, serving since May 2017. Prior to his current position, Taylor served as the deputy athletics director at the University of Iowa from 2014 to 2017, and was the athletics director at North Dakota State University from 2001 to 2014.
Scott Woodward is currently the athletics director at Louisiana State University (LSU). Woodward was previously director of athletics at the University of Washington from 2008 to 2016 and at Texas A&M University from 2016 to 2019.
David Spafford is an American university sports administrator and eighth athletic director for Emporia State University, a NCAA Division II sports program in Emporia, Kansas. Previously, Spafford was the athletics director at Regis University, and before that, served as the assistant or associate athletics director for several college institutions.