The University Athletic Association, Inc. (UAA) is a
non-profit corporation
A nonprofit corporation is any legal entity which has been incorporated under the law of its jurisdiction for purposes other than making profits for its owners or shareholders. Depending on the laws of the jurisdiction, a nonprofit corporation ma ...
that is responsible for maintaining the
Florida Gators
The Florida Gators are the College sports in the United States, intercollegiate athletic teams that represent the University of Florida, located in Gainesville, Florida, Gainesville. The University of Florida, its athletic program, its alumni an ...
intercollegiate sports program of the
University of Florida
The University of Florida (Florida or UF) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida, United States. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida and a preem ...
in
Gainesville, Florida
Gainesville is the county seat of Alachua County, Florida, United States, and the most populous city in North Central Florida, with a population of 145,212 in 2022. It is the principal city of the Gainesville metropolitan area, Florida, Gainesv ...
. The UAA is run by a board of directors led by the University of Florida's
athletic director
An athletic director (commonly "athletics director" or "AD") is an administrator at many American clubs or institutions, such as colleges and universities, as well as in larger high schools and middle schools, who oversees the work of coaches a ...
. The athletic director also acts as the UAA's
chief financial officer
A chief financial officer (CFO) is an officer of a company or organization who is assigned the primary responsibility for making decisions for the company for projects and its finances; i.a.: financial planning, management of financial risks, ...
and reports directly to the president of the university.
The modern University of Florida began participation in intercollegiate sports immediately upon opening at its Gainesville campus in 1906. Records indicate the existence of a UF "Athletic Association" as early as 1909, with the organization led by student represenatives and predominately involved with distributing the limited athletic funds allocated by the university.
The modern University Athletic Association was incorporated in 1929 with impetus from university president John J. Tigert to oversee the construction of
Florida Field
Ben Hill Griffin Stadium (in full Steve Spurrier-Florida Field at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium),2014–2015 Operating Budget Executive Summary Retrieved September 4, 2014.
Current varsity sports
The University of Florida fields teams in nine men's sports and twelve women's sports, all administered by the UAA:
The Florida men's and women's track and field teams are counted twice in the total number of sports teams because Florida's track and field athletes compete in the separate indoor and outdoor track and field seasons sanctioned by the NCAA.
Athletic directors
Fifteen men have served as the
athletic director
An athletic director (commonly "athletics director" or "AD") is an administrator at many American clubs or institutions, such as colleges and universities, as well as in larger high schools and middle schools, who oversees the work of coaches a ...
of the University of Florida's intercollegiate sports program since the position was created in 1917. Beginning with Edgar C. Jones in 1930, the athletic director has also led the UAA.
* Alfred L. Buser (1917–20)*
*
William G. Kline
William Gordon Kline (June 21, 1882 – after 1942) was an American college football, baseball and basketball coach. At different times, Kline served as the head coach of the Nebraska Cornhuskers baseball, basketball and football teams, as we ...
Charlie Bachman
Charles William Bachman Jr. (December 1, 1892 – December 14, 1985) was an American college football player and coach. Bachman was an Illinois native and an alumnus of the University of Notre Dame, where he played football. He served as the head ...
Josh Cody
Joshua Crittenden Cody (June 11, 1892 – June 17, 1961) was an American college athlete, head coach, and athletics director. "Josh" Cody was a native of Tennessee and an alumnus of Vanderbilt University, where he earned 13 letters playing sev ...
Raymond Wolf
Raymond Bernard Wolf (July 15, 1904 – October 6, 1979), nicknamed "Bear" Wolf, was an American football and baseball player and coach. Wolf was a native of Illinois and an alumnus of Texas Christian University (TCU), where he played college f ...
(1946–49)*
*
Bob Woodruff
Robert Warren Woodruff (born August 18, 1961) is an American television journalist. Since 1996, he has served as a reporter for ABC News (United States), ABC News. Woodruff co-anchored ''ABC World News Tonight'' in 2006 with journalist Elizabeth ...
(1950–59)*
*
Ray Graves
Samuel Ray Graves (December 31, 1918 – April 10, 2015) was an American professional football player and college football coach. He was a native of Tennessee and a graduate of the University of Tennessee, where he was the starting center and ...
Bill Arnsparger
William Stephen Arnsparger (December 16, 1926 – July 17, 2015) was an American college and professional football coach. He was born and raised in Paris, Kentucky, served in the United States Marine Corps during World War II, and graduated from ...
(1986–92)
* Jeremy Foley (1992–2016)
* Scott Stricklin (2016– )
''* indicates also served as Florida's head football coach''
Nine of the University of Florida's fifteen athletic directors also served as the head coach of the Florida Gators football team. This was once a common arrangement at American universities, especially in the first half of the 20th century, when athletic departments were loosely organized and operated on much smaller budgets than today's major college programs. Some of Florida's athletic directors also coached other sports while serving as the school's AD – James White coached basketball and baseball, while Edgar Jones coached golf. Some of UF's athletic directors were alumni who had been scholarship athletes at the school, including Everett Yon, Edgar Jones and Bill Carr. While Bill Arnsparger was not a Florida graduate and never coached at the school, he was serving as the head coach of the LSU Tigers football team when he accepted an offer to become Florida's AD in 1986, and he left the administrative position to resume his coaching career as an assistant in the
National Football League
The National Football League (NFL) is a Professional gridiron football, professional American football league in the United States. Composed of 32 teams, it is divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National ...
.
The last person to serve as Florida's AD while simultaneously coaching was Ray Graves, who resigned as Florida's head football coach in 1970 but remained on as the school's athletic director, a post he had already held for ten years. Jeremy Foley, who spent his entire working career with UF's Athletic Association, became the first UF AD to have never been a college coach or scholarship athlete when he was promoted to the position in 1992. Scott Stricklin, who has served as Florida's AD since Foley's retirement, arrived with extensive management experience in university athletic departments but had similarly never been a college coach or player.
See also
*
History of the University of Florida
The history of the University of Florida is firmly tied to the history of public education in the state of Florida. The University of Florida originated as several distinct institutions that were consolidated to create a single state-supported u ...
*
List of University of Florida Athletic Hall of Fame members
A list is a set of discrete items of information collected and set forth in some format for utility, entertainment, or other purposes. A list may be memorialized in any number of ways, including existing only in the mind of the list-maker, but ...