In February, Lindenwood University President Dr. John Porter made the announcement that the St. Charles-based school would be making the move to NCAA Division I for the 2022-23 school year. On Monday, Dr. Porter introduced the man who will help lead that move, naming Jason Coomer as Vice President for Intercollegiate Athletics.
Coomer comes to Lindenwood after 14 years at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, where he helped that school make a similar move just a few years ago. Coomer has served the last six years as the Cougars鈥 Deputy Athletic Director.
鈥淣ot a lot of people go through a transition like this twice; hopefully that experience works to our advantage,鈥 Coomer said. 鈥淗aving the background I do, hopefully I know where the opportunities lie and where those roadblocks may be. Things have changed a bit and there a different NCAA bylaws in place now, but hopefully my experience in this type of transition will be an asset.鈥
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Monday also happened to be Coomer鈥檚 44th birthday.
鈥淚 can鈥檛 think of a better way to celebrate,鈥 he said.
Coomer graduated from the University of Southern Indiana in 2001 with a Bachelor of Science in social education and a minor in business administration. He was also a three-year letter winner in tennis for the Screaming Eagles. In 2003, he earned a Master of Arts with an emphasis in sports management from Ohio State University.
At Ohio State, he served as a graduate assistant in event management, assisting in game management activities for 10 sports. He spent 2003-08 at DePaul University in Chicago, where he served as assistant director of marketing and licensing.
At SIUE, Coomer filled a number of responsibilities, including head tennis coach from 2010-16.
鈥淚鈥檝e had experience at a lot of different levels,鈥 he said. 鈥淏eing a student-athlete, I have an idea of what our young men and women are going through. And being a coach definitely helped make me a better administrator; I can evaluate from an administrator鈥檚 perspective as well as from a coach鈥檚 perspective.
鈥淭o me, the biggest part of that is helping to make sure the student-athletes have as good an experience as possible.鈥
Coomer added: 鈥淔und raising is critical. So are corporate sponsorships. But the student-athlete experience has to trump everything else.鈥
On July 1, Lindenwood will join the Ohio Valley Conference. Others in the OVC include SIU Edwardsville, Southeast Missouri, Eastern Illinois, Morehead State, Tennessee State, Tennessee Tech, University of Tennessee at Martin, University of Arkansas at Little Rock and University of Southern Indiana.
Like Lindenwood, Southern Indiana is making the step from DII to DI. In fact, Coomer has already been congratulated on his new job by Screaming Eagles director of athletics Jon Mark Hall.
鈥淚 told him I appreciated it, but don鈥檛 think for one minute we鈥檙e going to take it easy on them,鈥 kidded Coomer, who also expects to develop a rivalry with SIU Edwardsville. Jon Marc 鈥渉as been a great mentor over the years and I definitely think we can help each other through this transition over the next few years.鈥
The new schools will be able to compete for OVC championships right away, but will not be eligible to earn automatic bids to NCAA championships until their first full season of NCAA Division I membership in 2026-27.
鈥淚 feel Lindenwood has been ready for this step, and we鈥檙e definitely excited about our future,鈥 Coomer said.