The Division II Management Council will welcome four new members who will begin four-year terms after the 2010 Convention.

The new members are:

• Mount Olive Faculty Athletics Representative Brenda Cates, representing Conference Carolinas and replacing Tim Griggs, the athletics director at Coker.
• Great Lakes Valley Conference Commissioner Jim Naumovich, representing the GLVC and replacing Ann Jirkovsky, the faculty athletics representative at Bellarmine.
• Seattle Pacific Athletics Director Erin O’Connell, representing the Great Northwest Athletic Conference and replacing Darrell Axtell, the faculty athletics representative at St. Martin’s.
• Augusta State Athletics Director Clint Bryant, filling an at-large position and replacing Stephanie Harrison-Dyer, the senior woman administrator at Albany State.

Cates, formerly a member of the Division II Academic Requirements Committee, has been on the Mount Olive faculty since 1982 and has served as the Conference Carolinas FAR since 2003. She is a member of the Faculty Athletics Representatives Association’s Division II legislative review committee and also has served on the FARA executive committee. Cates also has been a participant in Division II’s Faculty Athletics Representatives Institute.

Naumovich is an NCAA committee veteran, having served on the Division II Men’s Soccer Committee, the Division II Championships Committee and the Division II Regionalization Task Force. He recently was appointed to a second term as president of the Division II Conference Commissioners Association. Naumovich, who has been commissioner of the GLVC since 2000, also previously served in several capacities at Quincy from 1985-2000, including as athletics director for eight years.

O’Connell was hired as the AD at Seattle Pacific in July 2008 after having served as an assistant AD there for five years. The University of Washington graduate worked in the Huskies’ athletics department, primarily with the rowing program, for 12 years before that. She is a former chair of the Division II Rowing Committee and currently chairs the GNAC management council.

Bryant was the longtime men’s basketball coach at Augusta State before becoming the school’s AD in 1997. This will be Bryant’s second term on the Council. He chaired the first iteration of the group after the NCAA federated its governance structure in 1997 to give each division legislative and policy-making autonomy. Bryant also formerly chaired the Division II Championships Committee and the NCAA Men’s Basketball Rules Committee, among several other committee appointments during his tenure.