Lawrence R. "Bubba" Cunningham (born May 12, 1962) is an American athletic administrator who has been serving as the athletic director at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill since November 2011. He previously served as athletic director at the University of Tulsa in Oklahoma from 2005 to 2011 and at Ball State University in Indiana from 2002 to 2005.

Early life and education

Lawrence R. Cunningham was born in Flint, Michigan, and was later raised in Naples, Florida. He attended the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, playing golf there. From the University of Notre Dame, he received a bachelor's and a master's degrees in 1984 and 1988, respectively.

Career

Cunningham began his career at the athletics department of the University of Notre Dame from 1995 to 2002, ending up of being an associate athletics director.^[1]

Cunningham was for the first time made athletics director at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana in 2002. During his tenure at Ball State, a $12 million campaign was conducted to renovate the football stadium.^[2]

Cunningham accepted his second athletics director job at the University of Tulsa in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 2005. He was Tulsa's athletic director during their transition to Conference USA. During his tenure, Tulsa won 34 league championships in various sports. He was awarded as the 2008–09 FBS Central Region Athletics Director of the Year by the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics.^[3]

On November 14, 2011, Cunningham accepted his current athletics director job at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He was awarded the 2019–20 AD of the Year Award from the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics.^[4][5]

Personal life

Cunningham is married to Tina Cunningham, and they have four children.^[6]