DAVIS WHITFIELD TO BE NEW NCHSAA EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
CHAPEL HILL – Norm Lowenthal, director of the William and Ida Friday Center for Continuing Education at the University of North Carolina, announced that Davis Whitfield has been selected as the next executive director of the North Carolina High School Athletic Association.
Loewenthal made the appointment after a university committee did the search and screening. The NCHSAA has been part of the university since 1913.
Whitfield will succeed Charlie Adams, who has been executive director of the NCHSAA since 1984 and with the Association since 1967. Adams has announced his retirement at the end of January in 2010.
Whitfield, 39, is currently the associate commissioner of the Atlantic Coast Conference, whose offices are in Greensboro, and has been with the ACC for the last seven years. There he has served on the commissioner’s executive staff and manages 22 sports and 21 conference championship events, providing oversight of all aspects of the Olympic sports regular season. Among his duties are developing multi-year schedules, addressing sportsmanship issues and enforcing conference game management policies.
He served as the NCAA site representative for the NCAA women’s soccer and baseball championships. He also represented the conference at local, regional and state events and worked with ACC corporate partners to create and provide exposure opportunities.
Prior to joining the ACC office, he was assistant athletic director for operations and facilities management at Wake Forest University, where he worked for four years. At Wake Forest he managed all home athletic contests for 18 varsity sports as well as all special events and concerts. He held a similar position at Campbell University from 1995 through ’98.
He worked at the 1996 Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta as assistant to the competition manager for baseball, assisting delegates of the International Baseball Association and assisting with scheduling team practices and crowd control.
Whitfield attended East Carolina University from 1988 through ’91, where he was a dean’s list student and a member of the varsity baseball team, and then transferred to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, earning his bachelor of arts in exercise and sports science in 1993. He also has a master’s degree in sports administration from UNC.
A native of Goldsboro and a graduate of Rosewood High School in Wayne County, Whitfield was inducted into the charter class of the school’s sports hall of fame in the fall of 2007.
Whitfield, his wife, the former Nicole Torode from Florida, and two children, Will (almost age 5) and Sydney Grace (almost 2) currently reside in Jamestown.
“Davis is an excellent selection as the next executive director of the North Carolina High School Athletic Association,” said ACC Commissioner John Swofford. “His enthusiasm, energy and values are among the many qualities that make Davis a talented administrator and leader.”
