Established 1929 Director Scott Stricklin | Website www.uaa.ufl.edu Founded 1929 | |
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Location Gainesville, Florida, U.S. Headquarters Gainesville, Florida, United States | ||
The University Athletic Association, Inc. (UAA) is a non-profit corporation that is responsible for maintaining the Florida Gators intercollegiate sports program of the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida. The UAA is run by a board of directors led by the University of Florida's athletic director. The athletic director also acts as the UAA's chief financial officer and reports directly to the president of the university.
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The athletic association was originally incorporated in 1929 with impetus from university president John J. Tigert to oversee the construction of Florida Field. Since then, its mission has grown to include operating and improving all of the school's athletic programs and facilities. For the 2014–15 academic year, the UAA has an annual operating budget of $103.3 million which is funded entirely through its own revenues with additional support from Gator Boosters, Inc., the fundraising arm of the university's athletic department. The UAA does not depend on the University of Florida's state funding for financial support, and has in fact contributed $79 million to the school's academic programs since 1990.
Current varsity sports
The UAA currently fields Florida Gators teams in nine men's sports and twelve women's sports:
The Gators 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
Since 1917, the following fourteen men have served as the athletic director of the University of Florida's intercollegiate sports program:
* 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 tended to be much smaller organizations with much smaller budgets than today's major college programs. Some of Florida's athletic directors coached other sports while serving as the school's AD – James White was the head coach of the Florida Gators men's basketball and baseball teams, and Edgar Jones was the head coach of the Gators men's golf team. Everett Yon, Edgar Jones and Bill Carr were former Gators athletes. While Bill Arnsparger never coached at Florida, he was the head coach of the LSU Tigers football team before coming to Gainesville, and he resigned as Florida's AD to accept an assistant coaching position in the National Football League.
Florida has not had one person simultaneously serving as athletic director and a coach since January 1970, when Ray Graves resigned as Florida's football coach 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, was the first University of Florida AD to have never previously been a coach or a scholarship athlete at the school. Foley retired in 2016, and Scott Stricklin, his replacement, also had years of experience in college athletic departments before becoming Florida's AD and had never been a college coach or player.