Photo courtesy of Brantley Bargerhuff/GSC.
Gulf South Conference Commissioner Matt Wilson at the GSC baseball championship in 2025
Gulf South Conference Commissioner Matt Wilson at the GSC baseball championship in 2025.
Matt Wilson hails from Columbia, Tennessee, but Birmingham has become home for him and his family. His wife Sara is the athletic director at Briarwood Christian School, daughter Mia is a Briarwood graduate and son Yates is a current student.
That’s what makes his next career move a little bittersweet in a way. After 12 years as the Gulf South Conference commissioner, Wilson has been named the next commissioner of the Ohio Valley Conference.
Last month, the OVC named Wilson its eighth commissioner, effective May 18. He will take the reins of a 78-year-old NCAA Division I conference headquartered in Brentwood, Tennessee.
“The OVC has been a conference that I’ve tried to work at a couple different times,” Wilson said.
Photo courtesy of Michael Wade/GSC.
Gulf South Conference Commissioner Matt Wilson
Gulf South Conference Commissioner Matt Wilson hands out a trophy at the GSC indoor track and field championship in 2024.
“This is actually the third time that I’ve interviewed for an opportunity with the OVC, and the first couple didn’t work out, and so it’s been an aspirational conference. My family’s roots are in middle Tennessee.”
When Wilson reflects on the tremendous career opportunity, he thinks back often to the youth sports leagues at Heardmont Park that his children were involved in, the churches, the schools and the community that became home in ways he never fully anticipated when he arrived 12 years ago.
Wilson and his family have grown deep roots in Birmingham. His wife, Sara, is now the athletic director at Briarwood Christian School. His daughter, Mia, was a standout volleyball player at Briarwood and is completing her first year at Auburn University. His son, Yates, is working his way through Briarwood now as well.
“We didn’t know what we were getting into when we moved to Birmingham,” Wilson said, “but it’s certainly been God’s blessing to put us here with the people that have been around us and the opportunities have been here.”
Wilson’s path to conference leadership began at Belmont University in Nashville, where he enrolled just as the school was navigating one of the most ambitious transitions in college athletics — moving from the NAIA to Division I, a jump that is no longer permitted under NCAA rules.
He graduated in 1998 with a degree in history, but by then he had already been doing far more than going to class. The athletic department kept giving him more responsibility, and he kept delivering, rising from assistant sports information director all the way to assistant athletic director over six years. It was a proving ground that set the tone for everything that followed.
“I guess I was doing something right and had some people that trusted me,” Wilson said.
That trust carried him to the Atlantic Sun Conference in 2005, where he spent nine years working his way up through championship administration and communications before finishing as chief operating officer and senior associate commissioner. During his tenure, he helped launch a four-year initiative to create ESPN-caliber productions through on-campus resources, organized the conference’s regional basketball television package and guided a transition to a campus hosting model for the basketball championship that produced the largest tournament crowds in recent conference history. He also served as tournament director and administrative liaison for 13 different sports.
When he was sought out for the GSC opening in Birmingham in 2014, Wilson was ready.
“I really got excited about the opportunity to lead my own conference, especially one as prestigious and well known as the GSC,” he said.
The GSC tenure was not without its challenges. Wilson arrived just four years after six member institutions had departed to form a new conference, inheriting a league still finding its footing.
Over 12 years, he helped stabilize and grow the conference, expanded championship sports offerings from 14 to 19, oversaw a 15-point increase in the Division II Academic Success Rate and guided the GSC to become the first non-Division I conference to partner with FloSports on a media rights deal. He served as president of the Division II Conference Commissioners Association and earned a spot on the 2024 NCAA Division II Think Tank.
GSC Board Chairman and AUM Chancellor Carl Stockton did not mince words when Wilson’s departure was announced.
“For more than a decade, Matt has been instrumental in growing the Gulf South Conference and helping it develop into one of the best Division II conferences in the nation,” Stockton said. “He will be truly missed by everyone in the conference.”
Now Wilson steps into a Division I role with three clear mandates set by the OVC Board of Presidents and Chancellors: membership recruitment and retention, brand elevation, and revenue growth and financial efficiencies.
OVC Board Chair John Porter, president of Lindenwood University, called Wilson “the clear choice” following a national search, citing his track record of building consensus among diverse stakeholders and his strategic vision for conference growth.
Wilson is candid about what 12 years at the GSC taught him.
“I think it’s humbling to be a leader for a diverse group of schools and people,” he said. “I’m a people pleaser at the end of the day, and … when you’re in a position like this, not everybody’s gonna be happy with every decision. …You have to be the one to lead for the collective. The biggest skill that I’ve gained out of working at the Gulf South is becoming a consensus builder. I really think that’s the biggest thing a commissioner can do.”
As for the move itself, Wilson acknowledged the OVC board has been accommodating given his family’s ties in Birmingham. He plans to work on a hybrid basis for the next couple of years while Sara continues building out the Briarwood athletics program and Yates finishes his time in school. It is a setup Wilson clearly does not take for granted.
“I’m so proud of the work she’s done and the path that she’s charted,” Wilson said of Sara, “and the fact that every single day, girls over there at Briarwood get to see a strong female Christian lead in a world that has typically been dominated by male administrators. She’s an amazing example for those young women over at the school.”
The OVC is getting a proven administrator. Birmingham helped make him one. The opportunity came together quickly, and he’s ready to get started in May.
“It’s been a whirlwind. It’s been fun, and I’m super excited about this next step,” Wilson said.
