DePaul officially announced DeWayne Peevy as its new athletic director on Monday. Peevy, who is coming over from Kentucky, will be taking over from Jean Lenti Ponsetto. 

Peevy has been Kentucky’s deputy director of athletics for the last six years and has been with their athletic department for the last 12 years. 

“I am honored and humbled today to accept the position of director of athletics at DePaul,” Peevy said in a statement. “This is an opportunity that I have long dreamed of and one that I do not take lightly. DePaul is a proud and tradition-rich athletic department built on the foundation of a strong mission in a diverse urban community. My family and I are all excited and energized to join the Blue Demon family.”

Peevy also worked closely with the Wildcats’ athletic director, Mitch Barnhart, and played a prominent role with key fundraising efforts, strategic planning and media relations. He was also the liaison to the Southeastern Conference and the SEC network offices.   

“From the moment I met DeWayne, I knew immediately that his integrity and passion combined with his impressive collegiate athletics experience would elevate DePaul and its student-athletes to even higher levels,” DePaul President A. Gabriel Esteban said in a statement. “A visionary leader who cares deeply about his community, DeWayne demonstrates the Vincentian personalism we value so much at DePaul. Jo and I look forward to welcoming DeWayne, Allison and their two children to the DePaul family.”

In addition to working closely with Barnhart, Peevy also oversaw Kentucky’s men’s basketball team and had a strong relationship with head coach John Calipari. The Wildcats have built one of the most successful men’s basketball programs in the country, while capturing the NCAA Tournament title in 2012.

“DeWayne is someone I trust wholeheartedly, to the point where he became the center of our scheduling and worked hand-in-hand with me on just about everything we do. It made it so that he and I talked every day, oftentimes multiple times a day,” Calipari said. “DePaul will see quickly that DeWayne is a gatherer, a listener, a consensus builder and an idea man who gathers the right people in place to execute. I can’t wait to see what happens for the athletic department at DePaul and for DeWayne personally.”

DePaul’s men’s basketball team, on the other hand, has not made the NCAA Tournament since 2004 and has had only one winning record since the 2006-07 season. Lenti Ponsetto has hired three different head coaches, Jerry Wainwright, Oliver Purnell and Dave Leitao, in 18 years to try to turnaround the program. Wainwright and Purnell were fired after five years, while Leitao will be entering his sixth season as the head coach. 

A graduate of the University of Montevallo, Peevy was on the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Final Four Media Coordination Committee through the 2013 NCAA Championship. 

Peevy was also the supervisor of the K Fund, Kentucky’s development department, securing gifts totaling $17 million of the $27 million raised for a new football training center, as well as $2.5 million of the $4 million for the men’s basketball practice locker room renovation project.

“DePaul is gaining one of the country’s finest young athletic administrators and leaders,” Kentucky President Eli Capilouto said in a statement. “And while he and his family will no longer be on our campus each day or on the sidelines cheering on our teams, they will always be members of the Big Blue Nation.”

DePaul conducted a national search for a new athletic director after Lenti Ponsetto announced in June that she will be retiring this summer. The university formed a search committee and hired DHR International to help find candidates. 

“The DePaul family will not be the same without Jeanne,” Esteban said. “Throughout her impressive tenure at DePaul, she has made countless contributions to ensure our student-athletes succeed both in competition and inside the classroom. Jo and I wish her well in her much deserved retirement.”

Peevy is set to take over from Lenti Ponsetto on Sept. 1. He and his wife, Allison, have two children: Kaitlyn, 19, and Braden, 13.