Tennessee athletic director Dave Hart announces retirement

Tennessee announced early Thursday that athletic director Dave Hart will retire June 30, 2017.

While he was athletic director, Hart instituted a merger of men and women’s athletics, dropping the “Lady” from most female athletic teams on campus besides women’s basketball.

Chancellor Jimmy Cheek accepted Hart’s decision. “My intent is to retire from the role as Athletics Director on June 30, not to retire in the purest sense of the word”.

Officials said Mr. Hart has turned around the athletics department financially, structurally and academically while re-energizing a now healthy Volunteer football program. The decision from Hart comes a couple of weeks after he told the Associated Press he had no plans to leave his position, though he did foreshadow changes to the university in the wake of Cheek’s decision. Under his leadership, he brought the student athletes’ grade point averages to the highest they’ve been in the history of the program. “We have much better teams in place and coaches in place”. Hart hired Rick Barnes as Tyndall’s replacement. Beth Alford-Sullivan has revitalized the track program. I think I speak for every single coach.

Tennessee AD Dave Hart will step down next summer. Basketball hire Donnie Tyndall bombed and was sacked after one season due to violations at former school Southern Mississippi and former Texas coach Rick Barnes was tabbed as his replacement. “We climbed it together”, said Hart at a press conference Thursday.

Hart’s tenure featured a number of lawsuits.

Tennessee also faced two gender-equity lawsuits.

Men’s basketball coach Cuonzo Martin left Tennessee for Cal because he didn’t believe he had Hart’s support. Jennings and the school reached a $320,000 settlement in October 2014. “But he said ‘We’ll raise the money” and we started raising money and he said ‘We’ve gotta start it because I want Pat Summitt to be a part of the dedication'”. “And we’ve done it together”.

He worked at Alabama, his alma mater, before moving to Tennessee. “His drive for comprehensive excellence has touched all facets of athletics”. He was Florida State’s athletic director from 1995-2007 and also spent 12 years at East Carolina, including eight as athletic director. “We will wrap up our three year fundraising campaign this fall which has enabled all of our facilities enhancements to come to fruition”, Mr. Hart said.

“I still have the same energy level that I probably had 15 years ago, so it’s not a matter of energy or anything of that nature”.