NASHVILLE, Tenn. — A former student-athlete and Vanderbilt Athletics Hall of Fame member whose philanthropic spirt touched generations of golfers and embodied the lifelong bonds at the heart of the Vanderbilt experience, Lew Conner, BA’60, JD’63, has passed away. He was 87.
Conner’s Vanderbilt story began as a student-athlete on the men’s golf team from 1957-60, one of head coach Frank Thorsey’s “capable men,” as The Vanderbilt Hustler put it at the time. But beyond the opportunity to compete against the SEC’s best, Conner’s years as a student-athlete proved to be only the spark for a fire that remained alight for more than six decades. An ardent supporter of Vanderbilt Athletics and golf, he devoted himself to giving back to the university and sport that brought him to Nashville in the first place.
At Vanderbilt Legends Club, home of the nationally recognized Vanderbilt men’s and women’s golf teams, Conner is the namesake of the Conner Family Hitting Bays and the Cleo and Lewis Conner, Sr. Short Game Practice Facility. The facilities he energetically and generously spearheaded over more than two decades have helped the men’s and women’s teams enjoy an unprecedented golden era under Thomas F. Roush, M.D., and Family Men’s Golf Head Coach Scott Limbaugh and women’s golf head coach Greg Allen. His support helped his successors on the men’s team reach heights earlier generations only dreamed of—winning three SEC championships and making 11 consecutive appearances in the NCAA Championships under Limbaugh’s tutelage.
In 2023, Conner and wife Ashley, BA’60, also joined fellow former student-athletes and Hall of Fame inductees Toby Wilt, BE’66 and Brandt Snedeker, BA’03, along with their wives, Lucianne Wilt and Mandy Snedeker, BA’02, in providing seed gifts to a Vandy United project that included the newly-dedicated Anthony Family Golf Team House, a reimagined best-in-class home for men’s and women’s golf student-athletes on and off the course.
“Vanderbilt golf has always been close to my heart,” Conner said at the time of the seed gift. “My time as a student-athlete shaped my Vanderbilt experience and life, and Ashley and I have been proud to support the student-athletes who have so admirably carried on the tradition and lifted the program to new heights.”
Conner’s deep affection for the sport permeated the golf community throughout the region and state. A 2010 inductee into the Tennessee…
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