A new era in Southern Conference history was ushered in when the league’s Council of Presidents named John Iamarino commissioner on January 2, 2006. The eighth commissioner in the 87-year history of the  conference, Iamarino has emphasized a strategic plan that calls for greater emphasis on the student-athlete in Southern Conference championships, increased television and video-streaming coverage, an aggressive policy toward conference and non-conference scheduling, and a commitment to rules compliance. 

In Iamarino’s short tenure, he reorganized the conference operation with the creation of a director of championships and the addition of a director of multi media services. A new television deal was struck with SportSouth in which more games in more sports will be aired throughout the Southern Conference footprint.

Iamarino, 52, has spent the past 23 years at the conference level, working at both the Sun Belt Conference and the Northeast Conference. Prior to joining the SoCon, he served as Commissioner of the NEC for nine years. During that time, the conference launched its first web-site, increased television coverage from 12 to 30 basketball games, worked to implement 30 grants-in-aid for the previously non-scholarship football programs, and initiated the league’s aggressive marketing and merchandising efforts.

Under his leadership, the NEC added new championships in the women’s sports of lacrosse, swimming & diving and field hockey. More recently, he was instrumental in the formation of the Gridiron Classic, a post-season game between the champions of the NEC and Pioneer Football League.

At the Sun Belt, he spent 13 years (1984-97) in a variety of publicity, compliance and administrative positions, rising to the level of Associate Commissioner. When the original Sun Belt merged with the then-American South Conference in 1991, Iamarino was the lone staffer from the original organization to move to the new Sun Belt, heading the transition team for the unprecedented merger of two Division I conferences.

He entered the field of intercollegiate athletics as Assistant Sports Information Director at Georgetown in 1979, working two years there before moving on to become Sports Information Director at Jacksonville.

He is active nationally with experience as a member of the NCAA Baseball Rules Committee, the Division I-AA Football Governance Committee and a special sub-committee of the Collegiate Commissioners’ Association studying the I-AA football playoffs. He recently served as Vice President of the CCA representing Division I-AA and served a term on the NCAA’s Special Events Committee.

Iamarino is a 1977 graduate of St. Bonaventure, where he earned magna cum laude honors majoring in journalism. A native of Monsey, N.Y., he resides in Spartanburg, S.C.with his wife, Mary Ann, and son P.J. (11).