Vanderbilt athletic director Candice Storey Lee could end up winning a major award soon.
Per a media release, Lee has been nominated for the Sports Business Journal’s Athletic Director of the Year Award. Lee is one of five finalists for the award that will be given to the winner on May 20.
This is the second consecutive year in which Lee has been named a finalist for the award. In May of 2020, Lee took over as the full time AD of Vanderbilt University and has overseen historical success over the past two years, especially during the current academic year.
The tip of the iceberg of Lee’s success in her position starts with Vanderbilt football. Head coach Clark Lea was hired in December of 2020 by Lee and the athletic department just months after Lee became the full time Athletic Director. In just the past two seasons, Lea has turned his football program around from 2-10 in 2023 to 10-3 in 2025, led by quarterback Diego Pavia.
But that is just scratching the surface of what Candice Storey Lee has overseen. In men’s and women’s basketball, the Commodores had seasons to remember. In men’s basketball head coach Mark Byington – hired by Lee in 2024 – led Vanderbilt to a 27-9 record and a No. 5 seed in the NCAA Tournament. It was the second consecutive season Byington brought the program to the tournament.
In women’s basketball, head coach Shea Ralph led Vanderbilt to a program record 29 wins and a trip to the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2009. Ralph got her team to a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament after a season in which Vanderbilt finished in second place in the SEC.
Additionally, Lee has seen Vanderbilt soccer get to its first ever Elite Eight in November 2025. Led by head coach Darren Ambrose, the Commodores won the SEC Tournament before going on a tournament run to a place it had not been to before.
But most importantly, Candice Storey Lee and the athletic department at Vanderbilt have done a nice job of retaining the coaches she has hired since taking over her position. In November, Clark Lea signed a contract extension before Byington and Ambrose signed contract extensions in their respective sports.
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Graham Baakko is a writer for Vanderbilt Commodores On SI, primarily covering football, basketball and baseball. Graham is a recent graduate from the University of Alabama, where he wrote for The Crimson White, WVUA-FM, WVUA 23 as he covered a variety of Crimson Tide sports. He also covered South Carolina athletics as a sportswriting intern for GamecockCentral.
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