Candice Storey Lee Named Vanderbilt Athletic Director

White smoke has emerged from the plumes of Kirkland Hall, and Vanderbilt University has its third athletic director in the last year and a half with the elevation of Candice Storey Lee, who had been serving as interim athletic director since Malcolm Turner resigned in February.

Lee, a former Commodore basketball player, graduated from Vanderbilt with a bachelor’s in Human and Organizational Development in 2000, and also earned a master’s degree (2002) and a doctorate (2012) from the university. Lee was a longtime associate athletic director under David Williams and was thought by many to be Williams’ eventual successor. But Vanderbilt went in a different direction when Williams retired, hiring Malcolm Turner away from the NBA’s G-League.

Lee remained on as an associate athletic director and eventually took the reins in February after Turner’s (controversial) resignation from the post. Vanderbilt promptly ended an SEC record 26-game conference losing streak in basketball the next day, which seemed serendipitous at the time.

Anyway, your opinion on this is probably going to be heavily influenced by your opinions of David Williams: if you think “David Williams, but younger and with more energy for the job” is a good idea, then you like this hire. But if you didn’t like the way the athletic department was run under Williams, my guess is you hate this hire. We’ll see.