Wright Waters was hired in June of 1988 to become the first compliance officer for the Southern Conference. Ostensibly, his duties were to make sure member institutions followed the rules and regulations of the conference and the NCAA, but his responsibilities quickly expanded and he became an obvious choice to replace Dave Hart Sr. in July of 1991.
Waters attended the University of Alabama before earning his undergraduate and graduate degrees from Livingston University. He began a career in collegiate athletics administration that included stops at Southern Mississippi, Florida, Southwestern Louisiana, and Tulane before joining the SoCon. He gained extensive experience in all aspects of running an athletic department—compliance, scheduling, radio and TV negotiations, ticketing, promotions.
An innovative thinker, Waters focused his efforts as commissioner on boosting revenues, improving the student-athlete experience, and making the basketball championship an event that would be regarded as first class. Like many of predecessors, he also had to deal with questions of expansion.
Under his guidance, conference finances were brought entirely in-house for the first time. Waters hired local Asheville businessperson Sue Arakas in 1994 to handle the league’s daily financial matters. Previously, a secretary/treasurer was appointed among one of the conference’s administrators. Arakas would eventually be promoted to associate commissioner and remain on staff for more than twenty-five years.
To impart leadership skills in Southern Conference student-athletes, Waters established the Student-Athlete Leadership Institute (SALI), a weekend summer retreat in the mountains of western North Carolina for team captains and other athletes exhibiting leadership qualities. Under Arakas’s direction, the retreat ran annually for more than two decades. Waters also initiated awards designed to recognize success in academic performance and graduation rates among league members.
When the Asheville Civic Center, site of the league’s basketball tournament, began showing signs of age, Waters negotiated an agreement with the Greensboro Coliseum to move the tournament there in 1996 for a four-year run that added significant revenue to the league’s budget.
The SoCon added new championships for women in soccer, softball, and golf. “I am proud that we have expanded not only the support and quality of our championships, but we have expanded the championship offerings,” he wrote in a summation letter prior to his departure.
Looking to increase membership to twelve, Waters steered the Southern Conference through two expansions. When Marshall University left in 1997, Wofford College and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro were added, bringing the league total to eleven members. A year later, the College of Charleston entered the fold.
“We have twice expanded the league without compromising our standards,” wrote Waters. “The new members have all enhanced the conference.”
The Montgomery, Alabama, native was always interested in new horizons. So it was not a complete surprise when he announced that he would not sign an extension of his contract. “I personally need a new challenge,” he wrote The Citadel’s Gerald Runey, president of the conference. “I have toyed with this issue for over a year. It is not made as a snap judgment.”
At 49, he was certainly not thinking retirement. After a year working in marketing for Crimson Tide Properties at his beloved University of Alabama, Waters spent fourteen years in New Orleans as commissioner of the Sun Belt Conference, adding football as a league sport, lining up bowl affiliations, and eventually bringing that conference its present FBS divisional status.
In 2012, he left the Sun Belt to become the executive director of the Football Bowl Association, a position he held through 2020. A statement by the association upon his hire said, “Wright has extensive experience in athletics administration and is capable of communicating with stakeholders throughout collegiate athletics as we navigate adjustments to college football’s postseason.”
Bio taken from "A Proud Athletic History: 100 Years of the Southern Conference" by John Iamarino