He's hired: Southeast's athletic director loses 'interim' tag

[Updated at 8 p.m.]

Brady Barke’s schedule was already pretty full when he had a conversation with Southeast Missouri State University President Carlos Vargas late Monday evening.

He went about “work as usual” on Tuesday, but added one thing to his agenda — a press conference introducing Barke, who has served as Southeast’s interim athletic director since last July, as the school’s new athletic director.

“You think about an opportunity like this, to really do something that has been a dream of yours,” Barke said during his press conference in Academic Hall, “and you think you’re ready for it and you think you’re ready for that day and then you find yourself walking down the hallway and you think, ‘I’m not quite sure I’m ready to talk about this yet.’”

Barke hadn’t quite had time for it to sink in that the interim tag was dropped from his title by the time he spoke in front of a crowd of Southeast coaches, faculty, staff and boosters.

He’s set to officially take over on July 1, but jokingly asked Vargas if he could get back to work tomorrow.

Vargas professed his complete trust in Barke and said he’ll do anything to ensure the success of Southeast athletics.

“At the end of the process I decided that Brady was the person that I felt I could work with the best and would be the person that would allow me to move forward athletics at the university,” Vargas said, “and when I say athletics, I mean the whole university as a result of that.”

Barke served in the interim role for 11 months, filling in for former AD Mark Alnutt, who departed for a deputy AD job at the University of Memphis just days after Vargas took over as the university’s 18th president.

Vargas said he was not directly involved with the search, but received updates from Bill Holland, chair of the Athletic Director Search Committee and vice president for University Advancement and executive director of the Southeast Missouri University Foundation.

There were more than 50 applicants, seven of which participated in Skype interviews before being narrowed down to three finalists — Barke, University of New Mexico senior associate athletic director Kurt Esser and Archdiocese of Los Angeles, California executive director of development Dan Coonan.

The finalists participated in open forums two weeks ago and met with Vargas, who laid out specific instructions for the search committee in the process.

“There was not to be any predestined outcome of this,” Holland said. “He wanted this to be totally fair and open, and he wanted three viable candidates with strengths and weaknesses, and that’s what we delivered. I was very appreciative of all the candidates that came forward. I can’t tell you how impressive the pool was.”

Barke played basketball and golf at Webster University, where he received his bachelor’s degree in biology. He earned a juris doctorate degree from Southern Illinois University School of Law and his master’s in business administration from Southeast.

He came to Southeast in 2008 as assistant director of athletics for compliance and eligibility and later served as interim associate director of athletics for compliance and student support services.

In 2013 he was named Senior Associate to the President and Secretary to the Southeast Board of Regents before moving back to the athletics department as interim AD in 2015.

“Well, Brady has a great passion for this university,” Holland said. “He’s not a natural extrovert, per se; he doesn’t pat himself on the back. But he is very focused towards student-athletes. I always was very impressed with him when he was a compliance officer for the university and the program, and I’ve had the pleasure of working with him very closely for the last three years, but especially this last year.

“I saw him grow in this job. That’s why he was so impressive in his interview day. He has a vision where he wants to go and as an interim you’re somewhat limited, but he made a lot of things happen and he’s a great partner for our alumni and our division and we hope to support him in every way we can for future success.”