David R. Hart (May 24, 1925 – March 14, 2009) was an

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wi ...

player, coach, and college athletics administrator. He served as the head football coach at the University of Pittsburgh from 1966 to 1968, compiling a record of 3–27.

Biography

Hart was the athletic director at the University of Louisville from 1973 to 1978. He also served in the same capacity at the

University of Missouri The University of Missouri (Mizzou, MU, or Missouri) is a public land-grant research university in Columbia, Missouri. It is Missouri's largest university and the flagship of the four-campus University of Missouri System. MU was founded in ...

from 1978 to 1986, before he was appointed as the commissioner of the

Southern Conference The Southern Conference (SoCon) is a collegiate athletic conference affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I. Southern Conference football teams compete in the Football Championship Subdivision (formerly k ...

. Hart was a native of

Connellsville, Pennsylvania Connellsville is a city in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, United States, southeast of Pittsburgh and away via the Youghiogheny River, a tributary of the Monongahela River. It is part of the Pittsburgh Metro Area. The population was 7,637 at t ...

. He coached

high school football High school football (french: football au lycée) is gridiron football played by high school teams in the United States and Canada. It ranks among the most popular interscholastic sports in both countries, but its popularity is declining, part ...

in Pennsylvania for eleven years before moving to the college ranks in 1962, when he became an assistant coach at the University of Kentucky. After two seasons at Kentucky, Hart moved to the

United States Naval Academy The United States Naval Academy (US Naval Academy, USNA, or Navy) is a federal service academy in Annapolis, Maryland. It was established on 10 October 1845 during the tenure of George Bancroft as Secretary of the Navy. The Naval Academy ...

, where he coached the defensive backfield in 1964 and 1965. Hart died on March 14, 2009, at the age of eighty-three. His son, Dave Hart Jr., was the vice chancellor and director of athletics at the University of Tennessee. Before, he was the executive director of athletics at his alma mater, assisting Alabama athletic director Mal Moore. Previously, he spent twelve years as Florida State's athletic director and at East Carolina University in the same role. His grandson, Rick Hart, is the athletic director at Southern Methodist University. Rick was previously athletic director at

University of Tennessee at Chattanooga The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UT-Chattanooga, UTC, or Chattanooga) is a public university in Chattanooga, Tennessee, United States. It was founded in 1886 and is one of four universities and two other affiliated institutions in the ...

Head coaching record

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hart, Dave 1925 births 2009 deaths Kentucky Wildcats football coaches Louisville Cardinals athletic directors Missouri Tigers athletic directors Navy Midshipmen football coaches Pittsburgh Panthers football coaches Saint Vincent Bearcats football players Southern Conference commissioners High school football coaches in Pennsylvania People from Connellsville, Pennsylvania Sportspeople from Fayette County, Pennsylvania Players of American football from Pennsylvania