Jay Butler Appointed Athletic Director at Cairn University

Cairn University is pleased to announce the appointment of John “Jay” Butler as the new director of athletics. Butler comes to Cairn from The College of New Rochelle (CNR), where he served as the director of athletics and the Wellness Center. At CNR, Butler’s responsibilities included managing and directing both the CNR athletics program and the Wellness Center, and recruiting and cultivating qualified student-athletes. Butler’s appointment at Cairn will commence after the conclusion of the spring 2018 term.
“We are thrilled to have Jay Butler join the Cairn Highlander Athletic team in this crucial leadership position,” states Scott Cawood, senior vice president of student affairs and administration, at Cairn University. “His years of experience in coaching and athletic administration will bring valuable expertise to our athletic endeavors.”
Butler has a wealth of experience in collegiate athletics, having served as assistant director of athletics at Hood College and director of athletics and recreation at the College of Mount Saint Vincent before his most recent post at CNR. “Cairn is blessed with a core of young, passionate, and energetic coaches. I look forward to sharing my experience with them and mentoring each one of them to become the best version of themselves,” comments Butler. “The Highlanders are poised to make some serious noise within the CSAC, and I am honored to have the chance to lead the athletic department at Cairn. We have a responsibility to the student-athletes and we will provide them with the highest quality NCAA Division III experience we can possibly offer.”
In addition to his experience in athletic administration, Butler was head coach for women’s basketball at Columbia University and has coached men’s and women’s tennis and women’s basketball at several schools, including Louisiana Tech University, St. Mary’s College of Maryland, and Brown University. Butler served as the ministry director for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, as well as the coaches’ ministry director in Ruston, LA, where he led a coaches’ ministry in five school districts. Butler graduated from Castleton State College in 1983, where he is also a member of the Athletic Hall of Fame, and earned a Masters of Exercise Physiology from the University of Maryland in 1986.
When asked about his vision for Cairn Athletics, Butler expressed, “At Cairn, athletics provides us with an opportunity to impact the world for Jesus Christ through the vehicle of sport. We will use this platform to train our student-athletes and coaches to represent Jesus in all they do, say, and live.”