Nathan Pine will be Air Force’s first athletic director without military experience.

That won’t be the last first Pine experiences after taking the revamped position at the academy.

Pine comes in not as a government employee, as each of his predecessors were, but reporting to the Air Force Athletic Association Corp. This change will permit Pine to earn beyond government scale, to directly raise funds and to shed some of the responsibilities of directly overseeing the physical education department that had come with the position.