NASHVILLE, Tenn. – June Stewart, a former longtime athletics administrator at Vanderbilt, died on Tuesday. She was 78.
Stewart began her career in the Vanderbilt sports information office in 1973 as a secretary in the sports information and National Commodore Club office and was named assistant sports information director in 1977. From 1979-90, she served as Vanderbilt’s women’s sports information director. In 1990, Stewart was promoted to women’s sports program director and assistant athletics director for future revenue sports.
Stewart was named associate athletics director at Vanderbilt in 1993 and remained in that position until her retirement in 2001. She was the first woman at Vanderbilt to serve as an assistant sports information director for men’s sports.
Stewart served as president of CoSIDA in 1990-91 and was the first of only three female presidents in the organization’s history. She was inducted into the CoSIDA Hall of Fame in 1997 and received the CoSIDA Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000. One of the most influential women in Southeastern Conference history, Stewart served on a number of committees during her time as an administrator at Vanderbilt, including the NCAA Women’s Basketball Committee (1990-96) and the SEC Executive Committee (1995-98).
Stewart was elected to the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame in 2004, the Tennessee Sports Writers Hall of Fame in 2007 and the inaugural Vanderbilt Athletics Hall of Fame in 2008. Each fall, Vanderbilt women’s tennis hosts the June Stewart Invitational in her honor.
