David Williams, 1st black athletic director in SEC, has died

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) David Williams II, the first black athletic director in the Southeastern Conference, has died. He was 71.

Vanderbilt officials said Williams died Friday at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. A retirement party for Williams, whose last day as athletic director was Jan. 31, had been scheduled for Friday night.

Williams had been the SEC’s second-longest tenured athletic director behind only Kentucky’s Mitch Barnhart when he announced his retirement last September. Malcolm Turner took over Feb. 1, Williams stayed on as a full-time law professor. He also was establishing a Sports, Law & Society program at Vanderbilt Law School.

Williams was vice chancellor of student affairs and a tenured law professor, general counsel and university secretary in 2003 when then-Chancellor Gordon Gee dissolved the Vanderbilt athletic department in 2003. Williams’ job overseeing student affairs put him in charge of athletics, which he had worked in while at Ohio State.

He shed some jobs in July 2012 when he took the athletic director title. During his tenure, Vanderbilt won four national championships combined in baseball (2014), women’s tennis (2015) and women’s bowling (2007, 2018), along with the best football success in nearly a century.

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