Clemson deputy athletic director leaving Tigers for Charlotte 49ers AD job
Kevin White, the deputy athletic director for Clemson, has been named the next athletic director for the Charlotte 49ers.
Charlotte chancellor Sharon Gaber announced Monday that White would become the eighth AD in the school’s history. White had been employed at Clemson since 2022.
“Kevin has helped lead a standout athletics program at Clemson and brings the vision, energy and leadership necessary to elevate Charlotte 49er athletics,” Gaber said in a statement. White will be introduced at a press conference on Charlotte’s campus Thursday afternoon.
As deputy AD behind athletic director Graham Neff, White worked as the sports supervisor for the Tigers’ two most prominent teams (football and men’s basketball) and ran the day-to-day operations for Clemson athletics.
White has also had a hand in Clemson’s name, image and likeness (NIL) strategy, revenue-sharing contract negotiations with athletes and fundraising through IPTAY, the school’s successful athletics fundraising arms. He held similar roles at SMU and Northwestern before coming to Clemson three years ago.
White has interviewed for a handful of athletic director jobs over the years, including the one at Memphis. Charlotte, which competes in the American Athletic Conference, needed a new athletic director after firing Mike Hill in October last year. Hill had been the AD from 2018-25 and was preceded by Judy Rose, who served the same role from 1990-2018.
At Clemson, White made $357,000 in annual salary in 2025-26, per publicly available salary reports. He’ll likely get a raise at Charlotte, which paid Hill $420,000 in base salary on his most recent contract before firing him in October in an out-of-the-blue move.
Gaber told The Charlotte Observer at the time that her decision to fire Hill “was not driven by the performance of any specific team. It was based on broader strategic considerations related to the overall direction and competitiveness of our athletics enterprise in a rapidly changing environment.”
White is a native of Chattanooga, Tenn., and a UNC alum who played junior varsity basketball with the Tar Heels. He told The State in a 2024 profile that he aspired to become an AD one day but was in no rush to leave Clemson.
“I probably don’t get many calls about similar jobs because they realize you’re at Clemson, and why are you gonna leave Clemson?” White said. “The next step, hopefully, for me is the AD chair at the right place.”
Said Clemson football coach Dabo Swinney in a statement: “I am excited for Kevin and his family. Kevin did a great job for us at Clemson. He is well-prepared and is a great fit for this opportunity at Charlotte.”
This story was originally published February 21, 2026 at 10:39 AM.
