INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — The leader of the Indiana High School Athletic Association will retire later this year, the organization announced Thursday.

Bobby Cox, 63, announced his intent to retire in a meeting of the IHSAA Executive Committee on Thursday morning.

Cox joined the IHSAA as assistant commissioner in 2000 and began serving as commissioner on Feb. 1, 2011. Highlights of his career include an expansion of corporate partnerships, an effort to allow students with intellectual disabilities to compete in teams for their schools, the start of online streaming of selected football and basketball games, and the promotion of an initiative to address student and adult behavior in team sports.

He also oversaw the moves to multiple classes in boys and girls soccer, and the addition of a sixth football class.

“It has been an honor to serve as Commissioner of this great organization,” Cox said in a statement from the IHSAA. “I will take away fond memories and a sense of accomplishment on behalf of our member schools and thousands of Hoosier students knowing that education-based athletics remains vitally important and relevant in our state.”

He will retire Aug. 20. A committee will form a plan to find a new commissioner and present it to the Executive Committee in February.

A Birmingham, Alabama, native, Cox is a 1975 graduate of Carmel High School, where he participated in cross country and track and field. He has a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree from Butler University. Before joining the IHSAA, he was athletics director at Carmel High School from 1997-2000 and athletics and activities director at Carmel Clay Junior High School from 1990-97. His wife, Kathy, is a former athletics and activities director at Clay Middle School in Carmel.