Morehead State University has hired a new athletic director.

Rowan County native, former Eagle and former Mason County Royals head basketball coach, Kelly Wells is taking the reigns at MSU. Wells had seen a successful run as AD for the University of Pikeville for the past five years. wells said that taking over at Morehead is like a dream come true for him, and that he knows his family is proudly looking down on him.

“I wish I could put into words my level of excitement, I’m not sure that there are words for those emotions that I have. While going to a place that you absolutely love and adore is easy, leaving a place that you adored and loved is hard, so I would be remiss if I didn’t thank my folks at Pikeville for the years of support and pouring into me over time. That is an amazing group of people and I will miss them but I will support them from a distance as well.” said Wells.

Wells grew up in Morehead, having gone to Rowan County High School, and then furthered his education at MSU.

During his time as head coach of Mason County, Wells led the Royals to a pair of state championship appearances, with the Royals bringing home the title in 2003. In the 2002-2003 season, Mason County went 35-2 and was the number one ranked team in the tenth region. The Royals only fell to the Apollo Eagles and the Lexington Catholic Knights that season, and continued to bring home win after win. Mason County had an outstanding team that year, and were made even better by being led by coach Wells.

After having travelled around the state and country looking for the perfect place for him, Wells found that he belonged right back at home.

“I’m a living trophy of this place.” said Wells, “When I came for my interview the first place we stopped in was doctor Morgan’s office and right where his secretary’s desk sit was where my mom sat for all her career. I was able to go talk to the coaches and some select student athletes in the Eagle’s Center and on the back of the wall is my dad in a leisure suit. I come here today an my dad’s picture is hanging up in the corner. You can’t just unplug that, Camden-Carroll Library was where I did my homework all through middle and elementary School.”

Upon returning to MSU, Wells’ plans to build upon what those have done before him. He believes that MSU has already built a strong athletic department, with strong, seasoned coaches, and talented athletes. Wells said that he is incredibly proud of the school’s history and heritage, and plans to move it to the next level, with failure not being an option.

Wells is looking forward to working alongside his coaching staff, to help them improve both the teams competitively, and the athletes academically. He believes that his role as an athletic director is to set his teams and athletes up for success, both on and off the court. Wells takes pride in his work, and with an education degree wants to see his athletes succeed in their school work just as much as during the game.

“I’ll say this completely and open and as honest as I can, winning is just a by product of doing a lot of things good. We’re doing our athletics good, we’re doing our player well-being good, we’re doing our mental health good, that becomes an opportunity to win. Winning’s hard, college athletics is hard to win at, it’s not an easy thing.” said Wells.

Although MSU president Dr. Jay Morgan joked that Wells was going to bring in eleven championship trophies next year, and he fully intends to do what is necessary to make that happen, Wells said that winning does not define success.

“I can empathise with coaches, when they’re having a bad day it doesn’t mean they’re bad people. Don’t ever assign your worth to winning and losing.”

Wells said that he intends to be an active and visible member of the community. He wants to ignite local interest in Morehead State University, and get the community involved in the teams success. Being visible, and known amongst the community is important to Wells, who believes that local support will skyrocket the teams well being, and put them on the fast track to a positive outlook. Alongside being active in the community, Wells plans to be active in his coaches and athletes lives outside of the game. Wells wants to be active and helpful in the athletes studying, academics and extracurricular activities.

“I think the biggest thing is to ignite our fan base and our support here. I’m going to be in our restaurants in the community, our businesses in our community, we laid a footprint of success throughout this whole regions while working at Pikeville, and I’ll carry that over to here as well. We want all our folks in Morehead to be a huge part of what we do and stop wearing University of Kentucky stuff around, stop wearing Louisville stuff around.” said wells, “When I see you in town I’m gonna always have a T-shirt in my back pocket that way if you’ve got the wrong thing on we’ll get you converted to your hometown team. We’ve got everything you need to support so down drive down 64 come over here and watch us play and perform, and support these athletes and coaches.”

Wells will officially begin his role of director of athletics on July first, 2023.