ATHLETICS DIRECTOR

Charles McClelland is entering his seventh year as the athletics director at Prairie View A&M University.  As athletics director, McClelland oversees 18 sports - 10 women’s sports and eight men’s.  His daily duties include overseeing budgets, scheduling, fund raising, marketing and keeping abreast of NCAA rules and regulations. 

When McClelland became athletic director in 2001, he wasted no time laying the groundwork to revitalize the PVAMU athletics program. Renovations to the weight room, football locker room and the creation of a women’s locker room in the William J. Nicks Building have been completed.

Other projects that have taken place under McClelland’s watch include the completion of a new women’s soccer field, a new football practice field and a new athletic building which currently houses the athletics administrative and coaching staff.  Through funding secured from alumni donations, construction for a new strength and conditioning facility will begin in August 2007.  In addition, McClelland has solidified funding by securing $300,000 in unrestricted corporate funds (State Farm Insurance) which will be used for facility improvements.

From a competitive standpoint, each of Prairie View’s 18 sports has steadily improved under McClelland’s tenure.  For the 2006-07 sports year the PVAMU athletic program received the school’s first-ever Southwestern Athletic Conference C.D. Henry Award, symbolic of overall excellence among the SWAC’s male sponsored sports.  Overall, the PVAMU Athletics program finished in second place for the Dr. James Frank Commissioner’s Cup Award and third for the Barbara Jacket-Sadie Magee Award.  The Dr. James Frank Commissioner’s Cup is symbolic of overall excellence among its sponsored sports and the Barbara Jacket-Sadie Magee Award is symbolic of overall excellence among its female sponsored sports.   Both finishes marked the highest by the PVAMU athletics department in 16 years.