Hakim McClellan rejoins the Jackson State staff as the Deputy Athletic Director in 2024 after a two-year stint as the Athletic Director at Mississippi Valley State.
During his time at Mississippi Valley State, McClellan oversaw several facility upgrades including a new video board at Rice-Totten Stadium most recently and a new field turf project. He also commissioned a new logo for the athletic department in June 2024.
Under McClellan's leadership, several significant projects and partnerships were realized at MVSU, including a partnership with Kimbrough Trucking, a Black-owned business in Indianola, Mississippi, resulting in the donation of an 18-wheeler truck, upgraded the tennis courts, updated the track, enhanced the softball deck, upgraded the weight room, and installed new computers in the athletics academic lab. McClellan also initiated a stole ceremony for graduating student-athletes, created a student-athlete lounge, increased the Graduation Success Rate (GSR), improved Academic Progress Rates (APR), achieved the highest GPA in five years across all athletics, hung basketball championship banners, developed an app for university athletics, increased MVSU’s athletic social media presence, and launched Athletics Giving Tuesday.
He originally joined the Jackson State Division of Athletics in July of 2018 and assumed the Associate Athletic Director for Compliance role. McClellan comes from Prairie View A&M and worked as the Athletic Academic Advisor for the men’s baseball, women’s basketball, soccer, and track & field teams. In July of 2016, he was named as PVAMU’s first Certification Officer in the Office of the Registrar.
As the Certification Officer, McClellan was responsible for the certification of all student-athletes for practice, competition and other university certifications. He served as a liaison between the office of Athletic Compliance & Academic Advising and campus academic offices.
Prior to McClellan’s role at PVAMU, he served on the compliance staff at Mississippi Valley State. McClellan was responsible for a variety of duties including coordinating with coaching staffs to verify compliance to student athletic eligibility standards. He will also be responsible for the monitoring of departmental compliance with NCAA and SWAC rules and regulations.
McCellan earned his bachelor's in business administration from MVSU in 2010 and his master's in business administration, also from MVSU.
McClellan is married to Eleanor McClellan. They have two children, Mikah and Makinley McClellan.
