Mike Carter served as the ORU Athletic Director for 27 years and transitioned to his new role as Athletic Director Emeritus on August 1, 2021. He became the Athletic Director in November 1994 after practicing business and sports law in Tulsa for 21 years. Carter served with the NCAA Division I Men’s Golf Committee for 24 years supervising regional and championship tournaments, and chaired the committee for five years. He was the chair of the Summit League Joint Council of athletic directors and senior women’s administrators and served on the Conference’s Executive Committee after having chaired the Championships, Men’s Basketball and Baseball Committees. For five years, he served on the Executive Committee of the NCAA Division I-AAA Athletic Directors Association and was the chair of the Awards Committee. In 2012, he was named the NCAA Division I Athletic Director of the Year for the Central Region.
Over his 25 years as a member of The Summit League and the Southland Conference, the Golden Eagles captured nine Commissioner’s Cups winning 155 Regular Season and Tournament Championships and sent 84 teams to NCAA Tournaments in addition to multiple NIT and other post season appearances. The baseball team played in the NCAA Regional Tournament 22 times. In 2021, the men’s basketball team made it to the Sweet Sixteen of the NCAA Championship Tournament. The programs produced 102 All-Americans, 1,480 All-Conference selections, 1,329 Academic All-Conference selections, 156 Players of the Year and three NCAA Champions. In 2012, Jack Whitt won the NCAA Outdoor Pole Vault Championship.
In 2008, Andretti Bain won the NCAA Men’s Indoor and Outdoor 400 meter Championships and collected a silver medal at the 2008 Olympics as part of the Bahamas’ 4 x 400 meter relay team. In 2008, Head Baseball Coach Rob Walton won the Gold Medal as the head coach of Team USA in the Baseball World Games in the Czech Republic with a perfect 24-0 record.
While at ORU, Carter created the ELI Academic Learning Center. ORU student athletes have had an overall G.P.A. of 3.0 or better the last 24 seasons of Carter’s tenure, including a record 3.43 GPA in 2020-21. He raised funds and upgraded facilities for all 16 of ORU’s sports including the construction and/or improvement of the volleyball, baseball, basketball, track, tennis, golf  and soccer facilities. New locker rooms, playing surfaces, sound systems, signage, and additional seating have assured ORU that its athletic facilities can rival most NCAA Division I universities. Carter also created an ORU Athletics Hall of Fame display in the North Lobby of the Mabee Center and unveiled a video conference room and renovated athletic training suite in 2013. The ONEOK Sports Complex, featuring tennis courts and the first on-campus track facility in school history, opened in October 2017.
Carter chaired the Marshal Committees for the 2001 U.S. Open, the 2007 PGA Championship the 2009 U.S. Amateur, the 2021 Sr. PGA Championship, as well as serving on other committees for major golf championships in 1977, 1982, and 1994 and PGA Tour Championships in 1995 and 1996 at Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa.
He serves as a member of the Ronald McDonald House Board, the Salvation Army Board, the Oklahoma Golf Hall of Fame Board, and the Tulsa Area Chamber of Commerce Advisory Board. He and his wife, Paula, are the Trustees of the Scott Carter Foundation which raises funds for children’s cancer research. Carter is a past board director of CureSearch for Childhood Cancer, Tulsa Sports Commission, Leadership Tulsa, Operation Aware, the Oklahoma Golf Association, Theater Tulsa, NABC Coaches vs. Cancer Board of Advisors, Southern Hills Country Club Board of Governors and served on the Mayor’s Vision 2025 Recreation and Leisure Committee.
He was honored by the Tulsa Sports Commission as the 2006 Sportsman of the Year. The Sigma Chi Fraternity awarded him with its National House Corporation Officer of the Year Award in 1983, the Gamma Delta Chapter Award of Merit in 1982, and its prestigious Significant Sig Award in 2014. Family and Children’s Services of Tulsa named Carter and his family the Family of the Year in 1994.
After receiving his B.S. degree from Oklahoma State University in 1970, Carter obtained a J.D. degree from the University of Tulsa College of Law in 1972. He and Paula have been married 52 years and are members of First United Methodist Church. They have two grown children, Lizz and Cason and three grandsons. Their son Scott died in 1993 of childhood cancer.
