Kevin White continues to live out his purpose at Charlotte

CAMERON WILLIAMS | THE CHARLOTTE POST

UNC Charlotte Chancellor Sharon Gaber (left) and athletics director Kevin White hold basketball and football jerseys at an introductory press conference on Feb. 26, 2026. White moved to Charlotte after four years as associate athletics director at Clemson.

Kevin White wanted to do something that truly mattered. 

In 2008, while working in corporate America, he questioned his purpose.

“I found myself asking an important question,” White, Charlotte’s new athletics director, said in Thursday at his introductory press conference. “What kind of impact am I having? Am I making a difference where it truly mattered? Around that same time, I watched something special happen year after year. My wife, Jari, is an educator and I watched lines of parents wait after kindergarten graduations just to say thank you to her for helping to turn the light bulb on for their child, helping them discover a love for reading and a love for learning. And I remember thinking ‘I want that purpose. I want to make our society better.’”

White found his purpose in college athletics. 

“Do I love to win? Absolutely,” he said, “and I understand winning will always be a part of how this job is judged. But equally important, maybe even more important is impacting the lives of young people who walk onto this beautiful campus. We need to help them grow. I want to help them develop confidence, help them become good citizens for life after college and most importantly, graduating with a degree from this great university. That’s my why.”

White’s “why” has taken him across the country, most recently at Clemson as associate athletics director responsible for football and basketball, the top revenue generating sports for most universities. He challenged 49ers fans to show up and be supportive as he dives into building consistent winners at his new job, starting March 1. 

“Charlotte’s stock is rising,” he said. “But, in order to truly strike gold, it’s going to take all of us. We have more than 189,000 alumni around the country, around the world, and our responsibility is to make sure they’re proud of their university. But greatness requires participation. We need you in the stands. We need you to buy tickets. We need you supporting our student athletes. We need you investing, donating and believing in what we’re building together because when this university and city align behind Charlotte athletics, special things will happen to our coaches and staff. I know we have talented people here who love the university deeply. 

“Passion matters and commitment matters. But if we’re going to reach new heights of excellence, it’s going to take all of us pulling together, working together, aligning around a shared vision, collaboration, accountability and unity. This is how we elevate how we do it.”

UNC Charlotte Chancellor Sharon Gaber said White checked all the boxes her and the hiring committee were looking for, and more.

“Athletics matter here,” she said.  … “We are committed to competing at the highest level in the American Conference, and positioning Charlotte athletics for sustained competitive excellence. With that in mind, when we set out to find our next athletics director, we were looking for four things: someone who can fundraise, someone who gets revenue generation, someone who knows how to win and someone with a proven track record of strong and visionary leadership. We were pleased to have a robust pool of more than 100 people interested in this position. In every category, one applicant stood out from the rest. Kevin White checked all four boxes and then some.”

At Clemson, White played a key role in fundraising and building name image and likeness relationships as the sport supervisor for Tigers football and basketball. Under his leadership, Clemson basketball reached the 2024 Elite Eight. He understands the importance of fundraising and revenue generation in modern college athletics. 

“The fundraising piece is really important,” White said. “I’m here at Charlotte. It’s been very clear that we need to be leaders in fundraising, but also revenue generation. We have a great team around us here in Charlotte that we’re looking forward to putting that action into place, that plan into place. The fundraising piece is really important for us, because we can engage with a lot of different donors. We have 189,000 alumni, and 60% of them live within Charlotte, and so we’re going to tap into that base. … We’re going to have success, because we’re going to look under every rock that we possibly can and connect people back to this great university.”
White already has connections in Charlotte that reached out to give their vote of confidence.

“I don’t think every candidate comes with 30 people, texting, emailing, or calling,” Gaber said. “It was fantastic to know that he had a broad sort of range of people here already rooting for him. And you know, as trustee [Dontae] Wilson mentioned, we know there are people in our community. And as he also mentioned, that hasn’t necessarily given to the university and that we’re going to say, ‘Hey, this is important. You want to support our AD. You want to support our athletics programs. We want you to do that.’ So, that was an example of one, because that wasn’t something we said was a criteria; that was a must have, that was certainly a nice have.”

White encouraged fans and alumni that he believes Charlotte has a chance to build something special, and he looks forward to leading the way.

“My promise to you is simple,” he said. “We will lead with integrity. We will compete relentlessly, we will develop young people prepared to lead meaningful lives, and we will represent Charlotte in a way that makes every one of our alumni proud to wear green gold. My family and I are grateful to be here. The work starts today. The future is bright and together, let’s go strike gold.”

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