Harold George Jeffcoat


Harold George Jeffcoat is a former professional baseball player, and the former president of Texas Wesleyan University and Millikin UniversityMillikin University.
Raised mainly in Tampa, Florida, he graduated from T.R. Robinson High School where he earned All- State honors as a quarterback and punter, and All-American in baseball. Drafted in the fourth round in the 1965 major league draft by the San Francisco Giants and subsequently in 1972 by the St. Louis Cardinals, he played ten years before retiring and returning to college to pursue his second career as a scholar and administrator.
Jeffcoat graduated with bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of South Florida, and later earned a doctorate in Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation from the University of Kentucky, and a law degree from the University of Leicester College of Law in the United Kingdom. Previously, he served as Vice Chancellor at the University of Missouri and Assistant Vice President at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. At the University of Missouri, Jeffcoat won grant support to create The European Union Center, an academic resource to study economic and agricultural issues in the European Union, serving as the Center's founding Director. At Purdue University, he helped lead the Purdue: Vision 21, a campaign that raised in excess of $330 million in support of the university academic programs and student scholarships.
He served as tenured professor of law and humanities at Texas Wesleyan University, as President and CEO at Wesleyan University from 2000-2010; and President and CEO at Millikin University from 2011-2012. Jeffcoat's publications and research interest focus mainly on aspects of European Union Competition Law and the philosophy of law. In 2013 he joined the firm of Benz, Whaley and Flessner, as Of Counsel and retired from professional life in 2015. He now resides in summer on Halsnoy, Norway and winter in Kissimmee, Florida.