UTAA President Jimmie Mancell Supports UT System Vision

This year’s UT Alumni Association president, double graduate Dr. Jimmie Mancell (Martin ’90, Health Sciences ’94), has long believed in the concept of the University of Tennessee System.

“Part of what led me to be involved,” says Mancell, “is that the alumni association sees itself as a systemwide association, recognizing that each campus has its individual strengths, and we share a common goal as a UT System. UT President Randy Boyd’s focus on the success of the system has allowed it to be successful across all campuses. My goal is to support the way we continue to lead in that focus on making this UT’s greatest decade.”

Mancell grew up as an Army brat. His father, Master Sgt. Jim Mancell, was stationed in Mannheim, West Germany, in the mid-1960s. One evening in nearby Busenberg, he heard a singer named Lieselotte (Lilo) Riedl.

“It was love at first listen,” says Mancell.

After the couple married, they were assigned to El Paso, Texas, where Jimmie was born in 1968. Soon after, his father was sent to Vietnam, and his mother took infant Jimmie to her parents’ home in Pirmasens, West Germany. The couple eventually moved to Heidelberg, where sons Jeff and John were born.

In subsequent years, the family was stationed near Colorado Springs, Colorado, and later with the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell in Clarksville. Mancell graduated from Henry County High School. His fondness for the Colorado mountains attracted him to UT Knoxville and the Great Smoky Mountains. Attending his first college football game in 1985, the Vols’ upset No. 1 Auburn and Heisman-winner-to-be Bo Jackson. Mancell decided to enroll at UT Knoxville.

As a child, Mancell wanted to be a physician, inspired by the empathy shown by doctors to his mother during a noncritical hospital stay. In his first year in Knoxville, an adviser heard his desire to attend medical school and mentioned UT Martin’s record of getting graduates into medical school.

“This was my first experience with a faculty-member adviser who recognized unique advantages of the UT System as a whole for the individual student,” says Mancell, who moved to Martin and graduated with a double major in biology and chemistry in 1990.

He fondly remembers biology professors Carol Slack and Bill Nelson and chemistry professor Jubran Wakim.

“They were very good about providing individual guidance when they recognized that’s what you wanted to do,” says Mancell. “They were very engaging.”

He chose to attend UT Health Sciences because of its reputation for providing the best clinical experience and training for students as physicians. After graduating in 1994, he interned at Methodist University Hospital when an ICU nurse named Michelle Centenio had some questions about a patient he had admitted. They had a fairy-tale wedding in 1998 in the Reichsburg Castle in Cochem, Germany. Mancell says his wife’s work as a nurse practitioner has given her an understanding of his work and its demands.

When the NBA Vancouver Grizzlies moved to Memphis in 2001, Mancell was named a team physician. He served as president of the NBA Physicians Association for two years. A friendship with the Grizzlies’ late GM Jerry West (whose silhouette is the NBA’s logo), led West to give tips to Mancell’s son Connor, now a sophomore guard at Cumberland University. Older son Liam graduated in 2025 from UT Knoxville with a degree in cinema studies.

In addition to his NBA role, he serves as medical consultant on the general medical committee of the NFL’s Health and Safety Program.

Mancell’s broad experience as a physician executive prepared him for his role as UTAA president. He served as associate dean for clinical affairs for UT Health Sciences and Methodist Healthcare System from 2013 to 2022 and is still an associate professor. In 2017 and 2018, he served as interim CEO of Methodist University Hospital. He also was president of the Memphis Medical Society in 2019.

One current UTAA challenge hits close to home for Mancell. In April, the Tennessee General Assembly approved $311 million in funding to construct a new UT Health Sciences College of Medicine Interdisciplinary Building.

“The project will actually run around $350 million,” says Mancell. “We will need alumni and other contributions to make up the difference. I am working with my colleagues to help us meet that goal and get engaged with that.”