Women and people of color have been breaking some long-standing barriers recently. Yesterday, Nina King continued that trend.
On Wednesday, Duke University announced that King, 42, would become their new Athletic Director. She will replace Kevin White, 70, who is retiring in August. This makes King the first woman and person of color to be Duke’s Athletic Director in the school’s history.
The new Vice President and Director of Athletics, the eighth in university history, has a long and successful career in college athletics administration.
King graduated from Notre Dame with a degree in accounting. Afterwards, she interned with the NCAA and Nike. Then she earned her law degree from Tulane before returning to Notre Dame as their director of rules education from 2005-08 where she worked under AD Kevin White. When White was named Duke’s AD in May of 2008, King followed him over that September.
Over the last 13 years, White and King have remained busy. They taught graduate level sports business courses and managed one of the busiest programs in the ACC. In 2015, King helped form ACE, Duke’s student-athletic civic engagement program. In 2018, she joined the Women’s basketball selection committee and a year later became the committee’s vice chair. Then last July, she led the search and hiring of women’s basketball coach, Kara Lawson.
After the announcement, the praise and respect for Nina King came pouring in.
“This is a historic hire for Duke University,” said coach Lawson said in a statement. “Congratulations to Nina; she is a star! She leads with intelligence, competitiveness and compassion. I am excited to work together with her. The future is bright for our department because I know we have the right person to represent us in every way. One of the main reasons I chose to come to Duke was because of the diversity that exists at every level. This is a powerful statement by president Price and our Board of Trustees.”
“Nina King is a terrific choice, and congratulations to Duke on an outstanding hire,” said ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips. “Nina is a person of tremendous integrity with quality experiences and insight that will serve Duke, its student-athletes, coaches, alumni and fans extremely well. We look forward to having her join the exceptional team of ACC Athletics Directors, and will continue to benefit from her servant leadership.”
Nina King is the third woman athletic director in ACC history. She follows N.C. State’s Debbie Yow, who was the Wolfpack’s AD from 2010 to 2019. Behind Yow came another history maker, Carla Williams, who, in 2017, became Virginia’s first Black woman AD and the first Black woman AD at a Power Five conference school. Williams’ barrier-breaking appointment was followed by another Black woman AD in 2020, Vanderbilt’s Candice Storey Lee.
Williams, Lee and now King are the only three Black women ADs among Power Five schools as well.
Now King, who most recently served as senior deputy athletics director overseeing football and women’s basketball, joins this elite group of sports pioneers.
“This is truly a magical moment within the life of Duke athletics,” said White. “Nina King is indeed the absolute perfect choice to lead this storied program. Nina, unequivocally, possesses all the intellectual and relationship skills, coupled with inordinate subject knowledge, which, in my humble view, represents a very serious leadership “upgrade!” To be sure, I could not possibly be more excited for both Duke University and the amazing King family.”
Duke’s legendary coach, Mike Krzyzewski, echoed everyone’s sentiments.
“This hire is an important step for the continuity of the outstanding culture that exists within Duke athletics,” said Coach K. “Serving as one of Kevin White’s most trusted advisors for his entire time at Duke, Nina King has served our university well in whatever roles have been assigned to her. She has represented the Duke department of athletics with distinction both internally and externally, including many roles on the national stage. That national presence is important in our school’s leadership position in an ever-changing college sports environment. Personally, I have enjoyed working with Nina and look forward to working with her even more in the future.”
Nina King was in an interesting position before Duke made their move. She was in consideration for the AD job at Northwestern before they gave it to Mike Polisky in May. Backlash ensued and he resigned less than two weeks later. The job re-opened but Duke made their choice and the right one at that.
“The committee was enthusiastic about Nina’s candidacy, and I could not be more excited to see her at the helm of Duke athletics,” said Richard Wagoner, a former Duke Board of Trustee chair and General Motors CEO who led the search committee.
