Kentucky’s Deputy AD to lead DePaul athletics. ‘He’s going to be successful.’
DePaul announced DeWayne Peevy as its new athletics director Monday, calling Kentucky’s deputy director of athletics “an admired and respected leader in intercollegiate athletics.”
Peevy replaces Jean Lenti Ponsetto, who has been part of DePaul’s athletics department for 45 years. A former four-sport player for DePaul, she had been the school’s athletics director since 2002.
“From the moment I met DeWayne, I knew immediately that his integrity and passion combined with his impressive collegiate athletics experience would elevate DePaul and its student athletes to even higher levels,” DePaul President A. Gabriel Esteban said in a news release. “A visionary leader who cares deeply about his community, DeWayne demonstrates the Vincentian personalism we value so much at DePaul.”
During most of his 12 years at UK, Peevy worked closely with John Calipari.
“DeWayne is someone I trust wholeheartedly, to the point where he became the center of our scheduling and worked hand-in-hand with me on just about everything we do,” the UK coach said in the DePaul news release. “It made it so that he and I talked every day, oftentimes multiple times a day. DePaul will see quickly that DeWayne is a gatherer, a listener, a consensus builder and a idea man who gathers the right people in place to execute.”
Peevy joins a number of Black Division I athletics directors that has hovered around 14 percent for several years.
In 2019, there were 51 Black athletics directors among the 354 Division I schools, according to the NCAA. There were 281 White athletics directors.
The Minority Opportunities Athletic Association, which is part of the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics, tracks what it calls “people of color” who are athletics directors. That designation includes Hispanics, Asians and Native Americans as well as African Americans. As of July 1, there were 54 people of color working as athletics directors at traditionally White colleges, MOAA Executive Director Stan Johnson said. Those include two athletics directors in the Southeastern Conference (Allen Greene at Auburn and Candice Lee at Vanderbilt), Gene Smith at Ohio State and Derrick Gragg at Tulsa.
On Wednesday, the NCAA named Gragg its new senior vice president for inclusion, education and community engagement.
Several people who have worked with Peevy applauded the idea of DePaul hiring him as its new athletics director. Mark Womack, the SEC’s associate commissioner and chief financial officer, likened the move to Peevy leaving the league office in 2008 to work for Kentucky’s athletics department.
“As it was a loss for the conference to lose DeWayne off our staff, it’d certainly be a loss to UK to lose him to DePaul,” Womack said this month. “It’s certainly something DeWayne had his sights set on. He would like to be an athletics director at some point when he left here. . . .
“He’s fully capable of meeting the challenge.”
Scott Stricklin, whom Peevy replaced as UK’s associate athletics director and head of media relations for men’s basketball, also endorsed DePaul’s expected decision.
“I think he’s really deserving,” said Stricklin, now Florida’s director of athletics. “Bright guy. Really well versed in everything you need to understand to be in a leadership role in athletics.”
During his time at Kentucky, Peevy worked as liaison between the men’s basketball program and the media from 2008 until 2013. He was promoted to senior associate athletics director for communications in 2010 when he assumed the duties of oversight of marketing and sports video.
Two years later, he became executive associate athletics director for external affairs. He also played a key role in men’s basketball scheduling, supervised the K Fund development office and worked as a liaison between the men’s basketball program and Director of Athletics Mitch Barnhart.
While heading UK’s basketball scheduling strategies, Peevy was part of the creation of the CBS Sports Classic. All four schools involved — Kentucky, North Carolina, UCLA and Ohio State — benefited from the schedule upgrade, the DePaul release said.
“At UK, his impact will be felt for years to come, and we will be able to enjoy the memories of the successes in our program we experienced together,” Barnhart said in the news release.
Peevy becomes at least the sixth UK staffer in Barnhart’s time to become an athletics director. He follows Rob Mullens (Oregon), Greg Byrne (Alabama), Mark Coyle (Minnesota), John Cohen (Mississippi State) and Stricklin (Florida).
Peevy also worked on the NCAA’s Final Four media coordination committee through 2013.
In eight years working at the Southeastern Conference office, Peevy was responsible for the day-to-day publicity of SEC men’s basketball and served as the media director of the SEC Men’s Basketball Tournament from 2004-08.
In late July, The Birmingham News named Peevy as one of the SEC’s “behind-the-scenes power players.” Each person was a future athletic director and someone “you go to when you need something done right,” the newspaper said.
A capable athletics director must be a good communicator, Womack said, plus be knowledgeable in fundraising, managing coaching staffs and working with the community.
“I think he hits all the areas you really need to,” Womack said of Peevy.
Stricklin, who first left Kentucky to become athletics director at Mississippi State, said he noted how Peevy represented UK at league meetings that Barnhart could not attend.
“DeWayne is a guy that you can just tell Mitch relies on . . . ,” Stricklin said this month. “The leader can’t do it all. You’ve got to have somebody you really trust who can carry your message. I just see Mitch has a lot of faith in DeWayne in being an extension of himself.”
Peevy is a native of Birmingham. He graduated from the University of Montevallo in 1996 with a degree in accounting. He worked as a media liaison for Montevallo three years before moving to the Gulf South Conference for a year as sports information director.
He is currently pursuing his master’s degree as part of the University of Kentucky/University of Louisville executive MBA program.
It was during his time at the SEC office that Peevy first crossed paths with Aaron Jordan, who now is director of communications at Alabama.
The two met in 2001. Jordan was interviewing for an internship position in the SEC office. Peevy was one of the officials he spoke with.
A native of Cincinnati, Jordan was in Birmingham for the first time. When he got the position, he did not know where he would live. Peevy came to the rescue.
“He calls me up and says, ‘Hey, we’re looking for a roommate. Do you want a place to live?’” Jordan recalled.
The answer was yes. But there was a problem. Jordan had a black lab named Kaydo. The apartment he would share with Peevy did not allow dogs.
Peevy arranged for a friend to take in Kaydo during the internship.
“That’s the kind of guy he is,” Jordan said. “Without knowing me from Adam, he offered me a place to live and offered someone to watch my dog for me.”
A friendship was born and endures. Peevy and Jordan served in each other’s wedding parties.
“One of the brightest guys I ever met,” Jordan said. “His critical thinking is second to none.”
As evidence, Jordan said that Peevy is a consistent winner in fantasy sports competitions.
Before the DePaul hiring was announced, Jordan said Peevy would be well informed on the job and its challenges.
“I think he’s been ready for an athletics director position for years,” Jordan said. “He’s going to be successful wherever he goes. There’s no doubt.”
