Dear Commodore Nation,
Growing up, I dreamed about playing college basketball. Vanderbilt gave me that opportunity.
A year ago, this university also afforded me the opportunity to be its athletic director. As someone who has prepared for my entire adult life to serve student-athletes, occupying this role is a profound honor and privilege. This past year has allowed me to have a positive influence on young people in ways I never dreamed possible.
Serving student-athletes remained my North Star throughout a year in which we confronted everything from a disorienting pandemic to a resurgence of racial injustice. No training could have prepared me for many of the challenges, any more than training could have prepared our coaches, staff and student-athletes. You can’t prepare for the unprecedented.
But I was prepared to put the interests of our students first, and all of us share that commitment: It is who we are at Vanderbilt. And while I’m proud that we made it through the past year together, I’m also energized to see us emerge better positioned for the future.
Disruption creates the conditions for change. And even though COVID-19 was all-consuming in many ways, navigating a pandemic didn’t relieve me of the responsibility to do what was necessary to move us forward. Part of putting our student-athletes first means not merely managing the present—challenging as that was—but planning for what comes next.
You know about changes we made among our coaches. While those sorts of decisions aren’t made lightly, I acted when I was convinced that change was necessary to take the steps forward we expect next year and beyond. We are excited about the futures of our football program under the leadership of Clark Lea and our women’s basketball program under Shea Ralph.
We brought Kristene Kelly aboard as deputy athletic director for internal affairs and Tommy McClelland as deputy athletic director for external affairs and revenue generation.
Just this week we announced that strength coach James Dobson will lead the effort to reimagine sport performance, using state of the art technology and customized analytics to help student-athletes reach their full performance potential. We do science well at Vanderbilt, so we’re bringing that tradition to bear on athletics.
Whether in facilities or personnel, we are committed to building an infrastructure behind the scenes that empowers our student-athletes on and off the field.
A good example is Ricky Thrash, one of the first people our student-athletes will encounter when they begin their Vanderbilt journeys. He has been part of the Commodore family for more than a decade, doing fantastic work in admissions, but I hired him earlier this year as the director of new student-athlete recruitment and transition programs.
Even as we hopefully return to some sense of normalcy in the months ahead, the pandemic will have a lasting impact on the incoming high school students whose learning situations have been so disrupted. Focusing on their adjustment to life at Vanderbilt will be more important than ever, and we believe Ricky’s position is an innovative way to help them during that process.
Each of the people I mentioned above, and our entire department, helped Vanderbilt get through the past year. They were hard at work last fall, when staging an event like a cross-country meet during a pandemic meant solving complex logistical puzzles. But even as I marvel at the thought of a full house returning to Hawkins Field this week, they also are the people who will help us chart a successful course for the future.
There is no greater example of Vanderbilt’s commitment to planning for a world beyond the pandemic than the Vandy United Fund. This $300 million commitment will help provide our student-athletes with the best experience in college athletics. It has already sparked generous participation as alumni and supporters come together as Vandy United.
Chancellor Diermeier and I speak frequently about the importance of college athletics within a university mission. Soon we will have the shovels in the ground to prove our dedication.
It is wonderful to be able to think about what comes next for Vanderbilt Athletics—and for our entire community.
Adversity forces us to grow and evaluate what is really important. Every athlete learns this, and it is no less true for athletic departments. For me, the past year was an undeniably challenging way to start a new job—even a new job in very familiar surroundings on West End. But the past year also reinforced that serving our student-athletes is what is important to me.
In this most difficult of years, I believe we accomplished that by laying a foundation for the future.
Anchor Down,
Candice Lee
Vice Chancellor for Athletics and University Affairs and Athletic Director
