SAA commissioner Stacey LaDew and Centre College AD Brad Fields with the Commissioner’s Cup won by Centre College. (Nate Weyant/SAA Photo)
Brad Fields is a competitive person and the Centre College athletics director believes that competition is healthy and helps people grow.
However, he does enjoy winning and is proud that for the second straight year Centre won the Southern Athletic Association Commissioner’s Cup all-sports trophy with 124 points — five more than Berry. The Cup recognizes the all-sports champion among SAA member institutions based on each program’s finish in the regular season standings.
The Colonels won seven SAA regular-season championships during the 2024-25 school year. Centre offers 25 sports but three are not offered by other SAA schools so that meant Centre won almost one-third of the regular-season championships.
“We have got a great group of coaches. I don’t think most people fully appreciate the level of competition that takes place on our campus because we are a Division III (non-scholarship) school. These talented young people were stars in high school and they put on a really good show here,” said Fields.
“I have a ton of respect for our conference schools as competitors. To be able to say we finished first against these schools I have a lot of respect for means a lot to me. It’s one thing if you win and the competition is not stiff but to beat out the teams we did for the second straight year is pretty cool.”
Fields, 49, admits it has been a “few years” since he brought up in a staff meeting how important winning the Commissioner’s Cup was to him but he knows his coaches understand the significance of being the best in the conference.
“In some ways the academic year can go by in the blink of an eye but can seem like an eternity at other times. I love that this award captures the cumulative effect of what you do all year,” Fields said. “These are moments to treasure when you win something like this.”
An even bigger goal would be to eventually win the Learfield Directors’ Cup given by the National Association of Collegiate Director of Athletics to the top school in each NCAA division. There are about 450 Division III schools and Fields’ goal since he became Centre’s athletics director 12 years ago was to finish in the top 10 percent.
“We are trying to inch our way up. Twelve years ago I would have said my aspirational moonshot would be to find ourselves in the top 25 (schools). Being in the top 10 percent would put us in the top 50. We have cracked that once or twice. More consistently we have been in the top 60 to 70 (schools),” Fields said.
The Centre College athletics director knows the school should perhaps do a better job “telling the story” about its athletics success, especially for recruits to see.
“We probably don’t brag about our success enough. You never know what might impact a 17- or 18-year-old (recruit). Winning the Cup impacts recruiting because it is not just men’s lacrosse and women’s basketball or track having success,” Fields said. “Yes, we have teams with dips and down years but there is a lot more winning going on here than losing and we do probably need to be better about tooting our own horn.”
