MORGANTOWN -- Not too long ago, Brad Cox was in one of those regular meetings with the other Big East Conference compliance directors when he was shocked out of that familiar feeling.

"All the people who were there when I started here and were there through the years were gone," said Cox, West Virginia's Assistant Athletic Director for Compliance. "I was the last one. I guess it's something no one plans to make a career of."

It certainly wasn't Cox's plan. The Newell native graduated from West Liberty State College in 1981 with a degree in business administration and then earned his master's in sports management from WVU 11 years later.

"I was looking for work in sports," Cox said. "I went to the (Mountaineer Athletic Club) and they didn't have anything. I went to marketing and they didn't have anything. Finally someone said, 'Why don't you look into compliance?' I said, 'What's that?'"

WVU Director of Athletics Ed Pastilong organized the compliance department in 1989 and was one of the first to appoint a full-time compliance director. Cox spent four years as the assistant before taking over in 1996.

Friday is his last day.

After 12 years as a largely unknown, though unmistakably critical entity in the athletic department, Cox is moving on to become an assistant director of admissions at WVU.

"Brad has the office running smoothly and will be a difficult employee to replace, which is a compliment to him and the job he has done," Pastilong said. "The good part is that he will remain in the university and we will continue to have access to him.

"We're very appreciative of the outstanding job Brad has done in the past 12 years and the admissions office is gaining a great employee."

Part of Cox's new job will deal with athletics. He'll help track student-athletes' academic progress toward graduation and coordinate the athletic department liaison position. 

"It's something different and I wanted a change professionally," he said. "I've always been big on challenging myself, which is one thing that attracted me to compliance when I started. I had no idea what it was all about. It was relatively new and gradually developed to what it is now."

Cox is the top cop in the part of the athletic department that polices everyone and everything to insure WVU operates within the rules. It's a fluid job that's always evolving and adapting to current events.

Every year the NCAA Manual is 500 or so pages long with just about as many interpretations of every rule, which explains why the department has a constant and meticulous responsibility.

"My philosophy is I always want to educate the coaching staffs, the student-athletes, the boosters, the alumni so they understand the rules," he said. "I always looked at it as if I was their consultant. I'm there to help them understand the rules through rules education.

"I answer questions when they ask, but when I have to say, 'No,' I try to say more than just that. I try to explain it to them and tell them why we can't do this or that and I think at the end of the day they respect that and appreciate why they weren't able to get a, 'Yes.'"

Cox preferred to remain behind the scenes, which makes sense because compliance usually isn't newsworthy unless it's noncompliant. The dilemmas he did deal with were rarely a matter of WVU messing up, but rather rogue coaches or players stepping out of the boundaries he tried to define.

The only major NCAA infraction in Cox's tenure came in 2007 and cost former men's soccer Coach Mike Seabolt his job. WVU was cleared of any wrongdoing in the case involving former men's basketball player Jonathan Hargett in 2002. 

"That's one thing I am proud of," he said. "We never during this process had a lack of institutional control or a lack of monitoring. We've had the NCAA come in for a couple of issues, but nobody's said we haven't done it right."

Cox is most proud, though, of the long list of sports management graduates who have come through his office as graduate assistants and taken compliance jobs across the country.

He said about a dozen work for colleges or conferences. Pastilong said WVU could pick Cox's replacement from that crop and hopes to do so "before the first football game."

"I must have sparked some interest in them from the standpoint they've stayed in it," Cox said.

Contact sportswriter Mike Casazza at mi...@dailymail.com">mi...@dailymail.com or (304) 319-1142.