'This is it': Lynn Thompson set for induction into athletic director hall of fame

During his 30 years in charge of Bethune-Cookman University’s athletic department, Lynn Thompson never thought about awards and recognition.

“You just go to work, and you work,” he said. “The greatest accolade I could ever think of was ‘thank you’ — when people just say, ‘I appreciate you, man.’”

But Thompson will get a whole lot more than that next week.

He will be inducted into the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics Hall of Fame during a June 12 ceremony in Orlando. Thompson said he learned of the honor when NACDA’s chief executive officer, Pat Manak, called him earlier this spring.

“It was one of the most humbling moments of my life,” he said. “What he shared with me and what one of my other colleagues shared with me was, you can’t go any higher than this in your industry, in your career. This is it. You’ve risen to the top.”

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Ironically, Thompson never planned on being an athletic director.

As a Daytona Beach native and Mainland High School alum, he attended Bethune-Cookman and played football for the Wildcats. After graduating in 1980, he moved to Atlanta and worked in the arts and as a producer and host of television shows.

Then, his father got sick, and Thompson returned home to take care of him. Former B-CU President Oswald Bronson asked Thompson to take a part-time job with the athletic department while in town. He assumed control of Bethune-Cookman’s radio network.

One day in 1991, Bronson called Thompson into his office and requested a favor.

“I thought maybe he needed a ride or something,” Thompson said.

Instead, Bronson asked him to be the school’s athletic director. Thompson pondered it for a few days and agreed to do it. At 33, he became the youngest Division I AD in the country.

During the ensuing three decades, he went from youngest athletic director in the nation to longest-tenured before stepping aside in 2021. The Wildcats won 71 championships during his time at the helm.

In 2015, Thompson received the elevated title of vice president for intercollegiate athletics. He was enshrined in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference Hall of Fame in 2016 and won the NACDA Athletic Director of the Year award in 2020.

“The key thing, when I look back on it, is nobody goes into the hall of fame by themselves. Nobody,” Thompson said. “When I accept this honor, it’s on behalf of a team of great people who believed in the same mission and same vision that I was given and who came alongside me to invest their time and efforts to transform young people and teach them how to become winners in life. And that’s what we did. Along the way, we won a ton of championships and we graduated a lot of kids.”

Since leaving Bethune-Cookman in 2021, Thompson has served as the strategic advisor to the commissioner of the MEAC.

Outside of that, he stays busy.

He wrote and narrated a short film for the Los Angeles Rams that came out in February. The documentary was about Kenny Washington, who was the first Black player to reintegrate the National Football League in 1946.

Thompson also penned a play named “A Chance for Redemption” that is set to debut in late August in Daytona Beach.

Seven others will be inducted into the NACDA Hall of Fame as part of Thompson’s 2023 class.

“I just really want to thank the coaches and the staff who believed in what we were doing and the people at Bethune-Cookman who believed in our vision,” Thompson said. “I really want to thank them.”

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Lynn Thompson set for induction into NACDA Hall of Fame