INDIANAPOLIS — Southwestern Athletic Conference Commissioner Dr. Charles McClelland and Iowa State University Director of Athletics Jamie Pollard have been named to the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Committee. Their five-year terms begin this September.
McClelland has been at the SWAC since last summer, having previously served as Vice President of Intercollegiate Athletics at one of its member schools, Texas Southern University, for a decade. During his tenure at TSU, McClelland guided the Tigers to unprecedented success, with notable academic improvements, an increase in brand visibility and significant achievements across the athletics department.
This included Texas Southern advancing to the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship four times in McClelland’s final five years at the school, with the Tigers earning their first-ever tournament win in 2018. In addition, Texas Southern co-hosted the 2016 Final Four, which was played in Houston, with McClelland serving on the local organizing committee.
Before starting at Texas Southern in 2008, McClelland was the Director of Athletics at Prairie View A&M University, overseeing a department that captured 18 SWAC championships during his seven years at the helm of his alma mater. McClelland earned a bachelor’s degree in accounting and his MBA from Prairie View and received his doctoral degree in Higher Education Administration from Texas A&M University.
McClelland is a past member of the NCAA Leadership Council and was honored by the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics as one of their Athletic Directors of the Year in 2007, becoming the first person from the Southwestern Athletic Conference to earn that award. He is the second SWAC commissioner to be a member of the committee, joining Robert Vowels, who served for one season in 2005-06.
“I’m extremely humbled and honored to be selected to serve as a member of the Division I Men’s Basketball Committee,” said McClelland. “The committee has a long-standing tradition of excellence and I’m very excited to begin working with the other members of the committee as we collectively seek the continued advancement of men’s basketball at the collegiate level.”
Pollard and McClelland will replace outgoing committee members Bernard Muir and Janet Cone. Muir, who is currently serving as the committee chair, is the director of athletics at Stanford University, while Cone is the director of athletics at the University of North Carolina Asheville. Other committee members include vice chair Kevin White, the director of athletics at Duke University; Mitch Barnhart, the director of athletics at the University of Kentucky; Tom Burnett, the commissioner of the Southland Conference; Bernadette McGlade, the commissioner of the Atlantic 10 Conference; Mike O’Brien, the director of athletics at Toledo University; Jim Phillips, the director of athletics at Northwestern University; Chris Reynolds, the direct of athletics at Bradley University; and Craig Thompson, the commissioner of the Mountain West Conference.
Courtesy: SWAC
