DAYTONA BEACH, Florida -- Earlier this month, longtime University of Utah Athletic Director Chris Hill retired after 31 years, making Thompson the longest actively tenured athletics director at the NCAA Division I level. Thompson, who almost looks as though he could still suit up for the Wildcats football team, has been at B-CU for 27 years.
“I can still remember the press release when I started,” he said. “It said I was one of the youngest Division I ADs in America. I was 33.”
A Daytona Beach native and product of Mainland High, Thompson was also a quarterback and punter for the Wildcats, and graduated from then Bethune-Cookman College in 1980. When he took over as the school’s athletic director in ’91, Thompson admitted to leaning on a pair of legends — former AD Tank Johnson and longtime coach/AD Cy McClairen — in the early years.
“It was a great situation for me,” he said. “To this day, we are still living off the interest of what those guys put into this program.”
It didn’t take long for Thompson to find his own voice. Just a few years after taking over at B-CU, he became the first African American to be named Chairman of the NCAA baseball rules committee.
“I went to the first couple meetings and played golf with the rest of the membership,” Thompson said.
“Originally, I was just the representative for the conference. After we got through we were sitting there having dinner, and one of the members pulled me aside and said they were going to nominate me to be the new Chair. I was from the smallest school there, and he said it didn’t matter, because I had what it took to do it. They told me that my voice mattered.”
One of Thompson’s strongest advocates over the past two decades has been MEAC Commissioner Dr. Dennis Thomas, who was the athletic director at Hampton University for 12 years before taking over the conference in 2001.
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