Barke was announced as the new athletic director on July 6

Southeast Missouri State University's Department of Athletics has a new director senior associate to the president Brady Barke taking over.

Southeast President Dr. Carlos Vargas-Aburto announced on July 6, the same day former director of athletics Mark Alnutt announced his resignation, that Barke would be taking over as the interim athletic director.

Alnutt resigned from his position to take the deputy director of athletics at the University of Memphis.

"Sometimes there is no rule when it comes to the timing of things," senior associate of athletics/woman administrator Cindy Gannon said of Alnutt's departure. "I think it's almost similar to the domino effect and the position that he took, the gentleman's job that he took I believe ended up back at Missouri."

Gannon continued to say that Alnutt was torn between taking the position at Memphis or staying at Southeast because he had a mission with the athletic programs, specifically with the new coaching hirings.

Vargas came to Barke and asked him if he was interested in the position since Barke had five years experience with the department of athletics.

Barke replied by saying that he wanted to do what was in the best interest for Southeast and that the athletic department was still reporting to him after he took his current job in as the senior associate to the president.

In 2008, Barke was hired by Gannon when she was the interim athletic director as the assistant director of athletics for compliance and eligibility.

"Gradually I was added additional responsibilities throughout my time," Barke said. "I oversaw our academic services, strength and conditioning, sports medicine, our baseball, men's basketball, football, track and field and cross country programs, all of those things at various points during my time. So I'm familiar with a lot of the personnel we have in place and obviously I'm familiar with a lot of the functions that administratively you have over in athletics."

Before he was hired as the senior associate to the president and still was working with athletics, he was promoted in 2011 to be the associate director of athletics for compliance and student support services.

Barke worked with Alnutt on the hiring of Rick Ray for the men's basketball coaching position and the hiring of football coach Tom Matukewicz.

Barke went on to say that he and Alnutt had a close relationship working together at Southeast and that they met after Alnutt's resignation and Barke's appointment.

"We did have a number of meetings and kind of talked just about some things that were going on and where things were in the process just to try and ease the transition as much as we could so that at the time that I started I was able to really get in and continue to move things forward and not spend all of the time just learning about what's going on," Barke said.

Barke said that he has continued to work with Gannon over the years and mentioned that she is a great resource for him.

"She was one of the first people I sat down and talked with in terms of ideas and things where we may be needed to focus some time and energy and how to continue to get better," Barke said. "I'll continue to lean on Cindy a lot and I'm thankful for having her over here to be able to help."

Barke has only been on the job for two weeks now but has met with many faces of the athletic department already.

"I've had an opportunity to sit down and talk with all of the head coaches one-on-one," Barke said. "I've talked to almost all of the staff that we have and heard any concerns that they have. I got a better sense of things on their minds so that we know what we're trying to maybe still accomplish and where we want to go. So that part of it has been good and the academic year is right around the corner, and so we don't have a lot of time to kind of get geared up for that."

Barke added that he has had to rush with a lot of tasks as interim athletic director but that the position is an exciting one with all of the current coaches and student-athletes. Being a former student-athlete himself -- he played basketball and golf at Webster University, the part of the job Barke loves most is working with students.

Vargas is currently tasked with finding a provost for Southeast and the search for a new athletic director likely will not begin until after that task is complete.