Mark Wharton remembers the low times.
He’s certainly reveling in the good ones. On Monday Wharton was one of four athletic directors at the Football Championship Subdivision level to win the Cushman and Wakefield Athletics Director of the Year Award by the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics.
But he remembers those lean times, when he was just getting started in the industry and holding upper administration positions at East Carolina, James Madison, UNC Asheville and UNLV from 1996-2006, then going back to East Carolina, then to Penn State before catching on as the full-time AD at UTC in 2017. He remembers he and his wife Angela having to move four young children from place to place as schools would go through transition in the administrative ranks — transition that sometimes wouldn’t include him.
“I feel like I kept my head up and kept my personality to be able to get to where I am,” Wharton said Monday. “It’s still a dream. I’ve never thought that this would be somewhere I would be an athletic director at, much less an athletic director anywhere. But that makes me look back and I’m really proud of what we’ve been able to do. This is kind of a testament to the success we’re having.”
Wharton’s athletic programs have seen success in recent years, with men’s basketball, women’s basketball, soccer, softball and wrestling having won Southern Conference championships during his time. He came to UTC known as a fundraiser, and that’s been proven true as the Mocs Club has increased donorship by over 220% and unrestricted support by nearly 30% in the 2022 fiscal year. In the classroom, UTC student-athletes had a 3.421 overall GPA in the spring of 2020 and had a 91% graduation rate in 2022.
The biggest contribution? The groundbreaking of the $34 million Wolford Family Athletic Center, a new complex that started a year ago — almost to the day, Mar. 25 of 2022 — and is expected to take a couple of years. Time and time again it has been referred to as a “gamechanger” for the university once it’s complete. There have also been improvements to the weight rooms that were introduced recently.
But what he seems to appreciate the most is the continuity in his primary staff, one that hasn’t seen any turnover in years. As one who knows what a lot of change can do to an athletic department, he’s been able to enjoy the success that comes from consistency in that same realm. So the fact that the executive team — Laura Herron, Andrew Horton, Dr. Emily Blackman, Dr. JAy Blackman and Ken Jones — have all remained intact has been important to the growth of the department as a whole.
“To be able to keep that core group that has helped me, to be able to be surrounded by the same people when we have tough decisions, good decisions, bad decisions, that’s very rare to see,” Wharton said. “It’s rare to see the Laura Herrons stay this long at this level, and that has been what I feel most proud of every hire I make. They’re involved with raising money, looking at strategy, those type of things and they’re crucial to that.
“But it’s the kind of people and culture that we have around us as coaches and how they act and portray this university that’s important to me.”
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com.
Staff photo by C.B. Schmelter / Athletic Director Mark Wharton speaks during a press conference introducing new women’s basketball head coach Katie Burrows in the Chattanooga Rooms at the University Center on the campus of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga on Friday, June 1, 2018 in Chattanooga, Tenn.