James Michael Holder (born August 17, 1948) is a former American college athletics administrator and former

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping wi ...

coach. He retired as

athletic director An athletic director (commonly "athletics director" or "AD") is an administrator at many American clubs or institutions, such as colleges and universities, as well as in larger high schools and middle schools, who oversees the work of coaches and ...

for

Oklahoma State University Oklahoma (; Choctaw: ; chr, ᎣᎧᎳᎰᎹ, ''Okalahoma'' ) is a state in the South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the north, Missouri on the northeast, Arkansas on the east, New ...

on June 30, 2021 after having served in that position since succeeding Harry Birdwell on September 16, 2005. His previous position was head coach of the men's golf program, where he served for 32 years. Holder was born in

Odessa, Texas Odessa is a city in and the county seat of Ector County, Texas, United States. It is located primarily in Ector County, although a small section of the city extends into Midland County. Odessa's population was 114,428 at the 2020 census, mak ...

. He obtained a bachelor's degree in

marketing Marketing is the process of exploring, creating, and delivering value to meet the needs of a target market in terms of goods and services; potentially including selection of a target audience; selection of certain attributes or themes to emph ...

from Oklahoma State while also playing under

Labron Harris Labron E. Harris (November 26, 1908 – August 14, 1995) was an American professional golfer and golf coach at Oklahoma State Cowboys, Oklahoma State University from 1947 to 1973. He coached Oklahoma State to 24 Missouri Valley Conference, Miss ...

on the men's golf team. As a player, he won the individual

Big Eight Conference The Big Eight Conference was a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA)-affiliated Division I-A college athletic association that sponsored football. It was formed in January 1907 as the Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Associatio ...

championship in 1970 while leading his team to the team championship, and earned third-team All-American honors. After completing his

MBA A Master of Business Administration (MBA; also Master's in Business Administration) is a postgraduate degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration such as accounti ...

at OSU in 1973, he took over for his former coach. His teams won 25 conference championships and eight national championships. Holder also was the main force behind the construction of the

Karsten Creek Karsten Creek Golf Club is located west on State Highway 51, just outside Stillwater, Oklahoma. It replaced Lakeside Golf Course as the home course of the Oklahoma State University (OSU) Men's and Women's golf teams in 1994. Karsten Creek now st ...

Golf Course, designed by

Tom Fazio Tom or TOM may refer to: * Tom (given name), a diminutive of Thomas or Tomás or an independent Aramaic given name (and a list of people with the name) Characters * Tom Anderson, a character in ''Beavis and Butt-Head'' * Tom Beck, a character ...

, which was completed in 1994. It now serves as the home of the Oklahoma State men's and women's golf teams, and hosted the 2003 and 2018 NCAA championships. His main focus as athletic director after the completion of Karsten Creek was the construction of an "Athletic Village" that now houses most of the athletic facilities in one area of campus. Holder's tenure also saw the university open a new athletic training center, a new tennis complex, and most recently

O'Brate Stadium O'Brate Stadium is a baseball park in Stillwater, Oklahoma. The home field of the Oklahoma State University Cowboys college baseball team, it is named after Cecil O'Brate. It was scheduled to host its first game on March 20, 2020 against TCU. F ...

, which opened in 2021 as the new home of Cowboys baseball.

References

External links

Oklahoma State profile

American male golfers Amateur golfers Oklahoma State Cowboys golfers Golfers from Oklahoma Oklahoma State Cowboys golf coaches Oklahoma State Cowboys and Cowgirls athletic directors People from Odessa, Texas People from Ardmore, Oklahoma 1948 births Living people {{US-golf-bio-stub