In the summer of 2001, John Iamarino applied for the vacant commissioner position at the Southern Conference. He was among the many applicants not invited for an interview. Four years later, when Danny Morrison left the position, Iamarino applied again. This time he was interviewed and offered the position shortly before Christmas.
The native of Monsey, New York, came to Spartanburg with extensive experience at the conference level. He was in his ninth year as commissioner of the Northeast Conference. Prior to that, he spent eleven years with the Sun Belt Conference, starting in media relations and gradually rising to the level of associate commissioner.
Iamarino’s professional career began as a sports writer in the suburban New York area, but a college friend’s suggestion to pursue a vacant sports information position at Georgetown University led him into college athletics.
Taking over at the eleven-member Southern Conference in January of 2006, Iamarino realized expansion would be a high priority. He became convinced that Samford University was the right fit and made logical sense geographically. He built consensus to add the Birmingham-based university in 2008.
“Samford’s transition to the SoCon was probably far more tranquil than is often the case in such matters,” said Samford president Dr. Andrew Westmoreland. “There appeared to be no disruption within the existing SoCon membership regarding Samford’s entrance, so we were welcomed from the very beginning.”
From the time he started, Iamarino had pushed for creation of a Southern Conference Hall of Fame. In 2008, the Council of Presidents approved the concept, and on May 4, 2009, the first ten inductees were honored at a reception and ceremony at the Chapman Cultural Center in Spartanburg.
“I distinctly remember sitting there on the stage looking across at Jerry West, Sam Huff, Dick Groat, Frank Selvy, and the others and thinking how awesome it was that we pulled all this together,” Iamarino recalled. “It was just a tremendous night for the Conference and for the city of Spartanburg.”
Within a couple years, membership issues became just as problematic for Iamarino as they had for so many previous Southern Conference leaders. “The discussions at league meetings seemed to focus more on the diversity of our institutions, and how that was a negative instead of a positive,” he recalled. “It had not been that way my first few years.”
In a nine-month period, five Southern Conference members announced plans to leave the league. Iamarino spent countless hours on the phone, researching and visiting campuses of potential new members, and networking with other commissioners. Eventually, offers were sent to, and accepted by, Mercer University and two former members seeking to return—East Tennessee State and Virginia Military Institute.
“Losing members and having to call other Commissioners and tell them you’re going to contact their schools, those are difficult things to deal with,” Iamarino said. “You just try to be professional about it and set your emotions to the side. I think we managed to get through it without sacrificing our reputation as a conference.”
With a new group of ten members looking to stabilize, Iamarino addressed some league-wide needs. Using exit fees from departing members, the conference office purchased video equipment for each member to launch the SoCon Digital Network in 2014. Shortly thereafter, video coordinators began producing live content for ESPN platforms. By 2017–18, Southern Conference institutions were producing more than 800 live events for video-streaming outlets.
In 2014, the Southern Conference Academic Exchange was formed, a collaborative effort directed by the chief academic officers. The group created conference awards honoring faculty and staff members, launched an annual student research forum, and began a program designed to instill leadership and development skills in faculty members.
In March of 2019, Iamarino announced he would retire at the end of June, saying, “It’s been a privilege to serve the SoCon, but I feel this is the right time for me to step aside.”
Bio taken from "A Proud Athletic History: 100 Years of the Southern Conference" by John Iamarino