The Search, Part 4: The Birmingham connections

Part 4 of a 7-part series on the UAB athletic director search. Read Part 1: The job | Part 2: The profile | Part 3: The obvious names | The Ingram departure | The fan reaction | Bill Clark interest

The last time UAB searched for an athletic director, the process produced three finalists who were senior administrators in contention for their first AD job: Mark Ingram from Temple, Jon Fagg from Arkansas and David Harris from Iowa State. Ingram got the job. The other two went on to become athletic directors themselves — Fagg at UT Arlington, Harris at Tulane, now an American Conference rival.

That tells you something about the quality of the pool UAB attracted in 2015. It also tells you something about how searches work. A committee can identify talent and rank candidates. That does not mean the ultimate decision-maker — or the influences around that decision-maker — will follow the recommendation.

A note on what this project is — and what it is not.

Diehard is not building a candidate list. We have no knowledge of who has applied, who has been contacted or who is under consideration, or if any of that process has even started yet. None of the people profiled below are being identified as candidates for the UAB athletic director job. We do not know if any of them would have interest in the position, and we are not suggesting they should.

What we are doing is using real people and real resumes to illustrate the talent pool that exists among athletics professionals. These profiles are meant to show the types of backgrounds, credentials and career trajectories a search committee evaluates when filling a job like this one. Some are sitting athletic directors. Some are proven executives at Power 4 schools. Some are rising names most fans won't have heard of before. The point is to give fans a window into how a search committee thinks — not to tell anyone who UAB should hire.

Today, here are some individuals with direct ties to UAB, Birmingham or the state of Alabama. In subsequent installments of this series, we'll look at additional candidate profiles through the same lens.

Sitting athletic directors

DeWayne Peevy

Peevy is a Birmingham native. His mother still lives in the city. He grew up here, graduated from the University of Montevallo and started his career in athletics at Montevallo before moving to the Gulf South Conference and then the SEC Conference office in Birmingham.

From there, he spent 12 years at Kentucky under Mitch Barnhart — one of the longest-tenured and most respected athletic directors in college sports. Peevy rose to deputy AD and helped create the CBS Sports Classic. He was the right-hand man for John Calipari and UK men's basketball. In 2020, he was named athletic director at DePaul.

In June 2026, SilverWaves Media named him one of the Top Athletic Directors in America. Earlier this year, DePaul elevated him to senior vice president — a title that reflects the scope of what he has built there. He was hired in August 2020 with more than 23 years of collegiate athletics experience across Kentucky, the SEC Conference office, the Gulf South Conference and Montevallo. His degree is in accounting. His Executive MBA came through the University of Kentucky/University of Louisville program.

At DePaul, the DePaul Athletics Fund — the department's reimagined philanthropic arm — generated a department-record $8.8 million in fiscal year 2025 from more than 2,500 donors. Revenue increased for every ticketed sport for the third consecutive year in 2025-26. He completed the first phase of renovations to the Sullivan Athletics Center in 2024 and secured full donor and corporate funding for a new dedicated basketball practice facility breaking ground in summer 2026. Strategic partnerships have included the NASCAR Chicago Street Race.

All of that in Chicago — a once-proud DePaul program mired in years of irrelevancy before Peevy came on board, competing for attention and resources in one of the country's most saturated sports markets. His hire of former Butler and Ohio State coach Chris Holtmann as men's basketball coach was highly praised, and the Blue Demons have shown significant progress toward competitiveness in the two seasons since.

On the student-athlete welfare side, Peevy introduced mandatory mental health screenings for all DePaul student-athletes in partnership with the university's Center for Counseling and Wellness, hired a dedicated sports dietitian and modernized the department's medical records and sports performance data systems. Student-athletes posted a program-record 3.607 GPA in 2024-25.

Peevy's salary is reported as approximately $595,000 with a contract through 2031. The Big East is a stronger basketball conference than the American. A hometown discount has limits — you do not give that much of one. But Peevy is from Birmingham. He knows the SEC landscape from the inside. He was trained by one of the best ADs in the business. And the pull of home is a factor that does not show up on a salary spreadsheet.

Martin Newton

Newton is already in Birmingham.

He has been the vice president for intercollegiate athletics at Samford since 2011 — 15 years at the school where he played basketball and earned his degree in 1983. Before Samford, he spent 13 years in sports marketing at Converse and another 13 at Nike. He also worked in men's basketball operations at Kentucky under Mitch Barnhart, handling budget, fundraising, compliance, scheduling, marketing and academic support.

Under Newton, Samford has won 89 Southern Conference championships. Philanthropic gifts and sponsorship revenue have doubled. He negotiated a university-wide Nike deal. Major facility investments have touched nearly every sport. He is currently serving on the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Committee and will chair it during the 2026-27 season — a national profile that exceeds what most Southern Conference athletic directors carry.

He's also proven he can evaluate coaches and isn't afraid to make changes. His hire of Bucky McMillan to lead men's basketball produced "BuckyBall" — a phenomenon that packed the seats, delivered a conference championship, a near-upset of Kansas in the NCAA Tournament and propelled McMillan to Texas A&M. UAB in particular has benefitted from Newton's coaching eye given it hired Samford coaches Casey Dunn to lead the baseball program and Megan Curry to lead the softball program. The decision to move on from Chris Hatcher (the program's all-time wins leader in football) wasn't easy but Newton landed former Jax State head coach (and Bill Clark assistant) John Grass as successor.

Newton has spent 15 years building Samford's program. His roots there are deep. But the American Conference is a larger stage than the Southern Conference, and a public university carries different resources and a different platform.

One also can't overlook the underlying politics. The son of former Alabama men's basketball coach C.M. Newton leading the program Bartow built? C.M. and Gene Bartow had a highly respectful professional relationship, but the optics are the optics for some people on both sides of the UA System divide.

Milton Overton

Overton was a four-year starter as an offensive lineman at Oklahoma before earning two master's degrees and beginning a career in athletics administration at TCU. He spent six years on the senior staff at Texas A&M, where he oversaw seven sports programs and led facility renovations including Kyle Field. He then spent six years at the University of Alabama as a senior associate athletic director, where he managed $25 million in budgets while producing $6 million in new revenue. His portfolio included the No. 1 trademark licensing program in intercollegiate athletics — Crimson Tide Productions — along with marketing, branding and outbound ticket sales. He is a graduate of the NCAA's Pathway Program, designed to prepare senior administrators for the AD chair.

In 2015, he was named athletic director at Florida A&M, where he delivered the program's first balanced budget in more than a decade, drove three consecutive years of record-breaking fundraising and raised APR scores and team GPAs across every sport — making every Rattler team eligible for NCAA postseason competition for the first time in years. In 2017, he became director of athletics at Kennesaw State, where the emphasis on student-athlete welfare has continued — KSU's $25 million Wellstar partnership includes funding for a new training complex and a dedicated center for physical and mental well-being.

What Overton has built at Kennesaw State is the strongest argument on his resume. He led the Owls through their FCS-to-FBS transition and into Conference USA — one of the most complex operational lifts a Group of 6 athletic director can execute. In football's first C-USA season, the Owls went 2-10. Overton hired Jerry Mack — formerly the running backs coach for the Jacksonville Jaguars and a three-time conference champion as head coach at North Carolina Central. In Mack's first season, Kennesaw State went 10-4 and won the Conference USA championship, beating Jacksonville State in the title game. Worst to first in one year.

The basketball hires have been equally eye-catching. Overton hired the late Amir Abdur-Rahim, who steered the Owls from a one-win season to March Madness in three years — the fastest such turnaround in NCAA history. Abdur-Rahim won the Hugh Durham National Mid-Major Coach of the Year award. The run generated an estimated $305 million in multimedia advertising value for Kennesaw State. When Abdur-Rahim left for South Florida, Overton landed Antoine Pettway — a 15-year Alabama assistant who was viewed as a rising star himself. Beyond the coaching hires, Overton secured a $25 million partnership with Wellstar, exceeded a $30 million capital campaign goal and produced KSU's first NFL Draft pick in Travis Bell.

Overton is also the founder of Enki System Inc., a sports technology company that provided software solutions for athletic and academic support programs across the country, generating more than $1 million in gross sales. That is not a line on most AD resumes.

Six years inside the UA System — running the country's top licensing program — means Overton understands the competitive dynamics of operating in Alabama and Auburn's shadow. He then went and built a Group of 6 program in a major metro surrounded by SEC powerhouses. That parallel to UAB's situation is striking. The American is a step up from Conference USA.

Proven executives

Trey Frazier

Frazier is currently the interim vice president for intercollegiate athletics at the University of Louisiana — a former UAB staffer whose career has progressed to the point where a university has entrusted him to lead the department.

He spent five years at UAB as senior director of development. During that time, he helped complete the $22.5 million football operations center, the $7.5 million basketball practice facility, the $1.5 million soccer stadium and the $2 million track and field facility. He set the school record for fundraising at $9.5 million in his first year. He set the annual fund record at $2.7 million in 2021. He led new football stadium sales — selling out all 34 suites and more than 1,500 club seats. He was a member of the leadership committee that planned the conference transition to the American and part of the leadership team that executed football's return.

Before UAB, Frazier spent four years at Virginia Tech, where he co-led the Hokie Scholarship Fund and helped drive a 73% increase in annual giving from $9.8 million to an all-time record of $17 million. After UAB, he went to Missouri for strategic planning before taking the Louisiana position.

As senior director of development, Frazier was the person in the room with UAB's major donors during a period when the program built more than $33 million in facilities, sold out every suite in the new stadium and brought football back. He has built on that foundation in the ACC and now in the Sun Belt.

Tiffini Grimes

Grimes is a Purdue graduate and Valparaiso-trained attorney who worked at Penn State during the tenures of football coaches Bill O'Brien and James Franklin before spending six years at Alabama. At Alabama, she rose from assistant athletic director for compliance to senior deputy AD, chief diversity officer and senior woman administrator under Greg Byrne — earning promotions at every stage. She held compliance oversight for Alabama football and men's basketball. She worked alongside Nick Saban.

Her creation of the Elite Athlete Program at Alabama went beyond the standard student-athlete development model. The program manages Olympic transitions to Team USA and professional preparation for NFL and NBA prospects — the infrastructure that supports athletes at the highest level of college sports. But Grimes has been equally vocal about the other side of that equation: making sure student-athletes who are not going pro are taken care of holistically. Her philosophy on that is direct — when a parent drops their child off and the recruiting pitch promises a family away from home, the institution has a responsibility to deliver on that promise.

She has been named to Sports Illustrated's 100 Influential Black Women in Sports and The Athletic's 40 Under 40. She is now the deputy athletic director and senior woman administrator at Purdue — her alma mater — where she oversees academics, compliance, student-athlete development and equity and inclusion. She is one of three women in the Big Ten with sport oversight of football. The SWA designation gives her a seat at the table for conference governance and NCAA decision-making — the conversations shaping where college athletics is headed.

Grimes is making approximately $326,000 at Purdue. A Black woman leading UAB Athletics in Birmingham would be a historic hire.

Haven Fields Sr.

Fields played football at Auburn, earning the Zeke Smith Award as the team's Defensive Player of the Year and honorable mention All-SEC honors as a linebacker. He played professionally in the CFL with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats and the BC Lions.

After his playing career, Fields spent more than five years at the University of South Alabama helping build the football program from its founding through its FBS transition. He then moved to Auburn for four years in athletics administration, followed by six years at Illinois, where he was part of $321 million in athletics fundraising within a $2.7 billion university campaign. At Ball State, he raised more than $15 million and helped the program earn its first bowl win in school history. He joined Washington in 2024, the program that had just won the Pac-12 championship and reached the College Football Playoff national title game. He is now the deputy athletic director and chief operating officer at Nebraska.

Fields is the No. 2 at a Big Ten school making a reported salary of $325,000 per the Omaha World-Herald. He played at Auburn. At every stop on his climb in responsibilities — South Alabama's football founding, Auburn, Illinois, Ball State's first bowl win, Washington, Nebraska — he has been part of building up or restoring a program.

Charles Bloom

Bloom spent 17 years in Birmingham as the SEC Conference office's director and later associate commissioner for media and public relations. He was the conference's chief spokesperson. He oversaw SEC Championship Game media operations, assisted in the creation of the Bowl Championship Series and started the SEC office's social media and digital content operations. He was inducted into the CoSIDA Hall of Fame in 2011.

He left Birmingham for his alma mater, South Carolina, in 2012, where he is now the executive associate athletics director, chief of staff and chief communications officer — 14 years removed from the city. But 17 years in Birmingham running communications for the most powerful conference in college sports means he knows almost every media contact, every corporate stakeholder and every sports decision-maker in the market. Those relationships do not fully expire.

Bloom's career has been communications-focused, not revenue or operations — a non-traditional background for an AD. But as Part 2 of this series examined, the industry is rethinking what an athletic director looks like. Bloom spent 17 years embedded in Birmingham's sports ecosystem at the highest level, and he's been mentored by, worked alongside, and even mentored himself, some of the best administrators in college sports history. He has direct touchpoints across all aspects of the industry, both inside and outside of the athletic department.

Dr. Charvi Greer

Greer is a native of Auburn, Alabama. She worked at UAB in student-athlete support services early in her career before spending five years at East Tennessee State and then moving to Tulane, where she has been since 2016.

At Tulane, she is the deputy athletic director for student services and the senior woman administrator. She oversees student-athlete welfare, academic advising, sport performance, compliance, Title IX and gender equity, student conduct and a $21 million financial aid budget. She is the sport administrator for men's basketball, women's basketball and volleyball. She holds an Ed.D. in Global Sport Leadership.

Greer is at an American Conference school. She knows the conference. She is from Alabama. She has UAB experience. Her portfolio — compliance, Title IX, student welfare — covers areas that have drawn scrutiny across college athletics in recent years and, currently, at UAB in particular.

Up-and-comers

Alvin Franklin

Franklin's career in athletics development includes UAB, South Alabama, Purdue for major gifts and Mississippi State as an associate athletic director for development before landing at Houston, where he is the chief revenue officer. Houston was in the American Conference until joining the Big 12 in 2023 — he knows the conference UAB currently plays in.

Franklin's rise has been rapid. Five programs, three conferences, each stop a step up — from early development work to chief revenue officer at a Big 12 school. His career has been built entirely in athletics development and revenue, and the pace at which he has moved through the industry is the kind that marks someone as a future athletic director.

Taylor Bryan

Bryan is a Birmingham native — Clay-Chalkville High School — who earned his degree at Troy and his master's in sport administration at Troy before beginning his career in Auburn's media relations office. He spent four years at Baylor under Mack Rhoades, then served as a senior associate athletic director at North Texas — which is in the American — before returning to Auburn in 2025 as associate athletic director for strategic communications.

Bryan is younger than most names on this list. But his mentorship tree — Mack Rhoades and Jeremiah Dickey at Baylor, Jared Mosley at North Texas — connects him to some of the more respected AD pipelines in the industry. Dickey is now the athletic director at Boise State — one of the most prominent ADs in the Group of 6. Bryan has worked at both Power 4 and Group of 6 programs, including one that is in the American. He is from Birmingham. He is at Auburn, two hours away.

Alec Bartow

Bartow is a Birmingham native — the grandson of Gene Bartow, who founded UAB athletics, and the son of Murry Bartow, who coached UAB men's basketball. He spent five and a half years at UAB as an associate director of development within Blazer Boosters. During his tenure, cash received exceeded $5 million in six of seven years. The program hit all-time records with 1,765 scholarship donors, 2,050 total donors and $2.7 million in scholarship revenue. He also worked in corporate sales at Bristol Motor Speedway.

He is now at the University of Tennessee, where he works in major gifts for the Tennessee Fund. He is an ETSU graduate with a degree in sports management.

Bartow is more junior than most names on this list — a development director, not a deputy AD. But five and a half years inside Blazer Boosters means he built relationships with the donor base that funded UAB athletics during a critical growth period. He has since moved to major gifts at Tennessee — one of the top fundraising operations in the SEC.

Next: Part 5 — The basketball background. Sitting ADs at big-time basketball-only schools for whom the opportunity to lead an FBS football program is a resume challenge they need.