Don’t let the East Coast accent fool you. Joe D’Antonio is a diehard Dallas Cowboys fan, thanks to his boyhood hero Roger Staubach. He’s also a veteran of six Boston Marathons. So D’Antonio knows a lot about going the distance, but as the inaugural chair of the Division I Legislative Council, he’s squarely focused on getting something started.

The Legislative Council, along with the Division I Leadership Council, replaced the Division I Management Council and is charged with reviewing and interpreting legislative proposals. In addition, several NCAA committees report to the group, which held its first meeting in October.

An associate commissioner at the Big East Conference since 2005, D’Antonio entered college sports as a manager for the men’s ice hockey team at his alma mater, Providence. At the time, he wasn’t sold on pursuing a career in the collegiate ranks, but he was interested in staying in the sports industry, perhaps as an agent. Then after he graduated from law school and began practicing law, he jumped at the chance to become Providence’s first full-time compliance officer.

“I remember sitting in my office the first day thinking, ‘This is great. I might have the opportunity to work in college athletics the rest of my life,’ ” D’Antonio recalled. “It’s actually worked out pretty well.”

A legal background and extensive campus and conference experience have provided a powerful launching pad for D’Antonio. By his own admission, he’s not only a dedicated family man, but also a people person.

“In terms of being about to chair and run a meeting, I think it’s just being able to relate to people,” he said. “I’ve had the ability to speak on my feet and in front of people. Just like everything in life, if you gain more and more experience in those areas, it helps to prepare you anytime you have to do it.”

D’Antonio  wants the Legislative Council to play a key role in providing useful information to the membership on proposals and fostering close relationships with the Leadership Council, the other cabinets and the Board of Directors. D’Antonio hopes the membership will be able to understand any given proposal in the cycle based on his group’s work, and he wants the Legislative Council and other governance bodies in the new structure to be on the same page and engage in a healthy exchange of ideas.

While he believes the newness of the structure and the group presents the cabinet’s biggest hurdle, D’Antonio is excited about the group’s future and potential.

“We’ve never at this stage of the game, as a group this large, taken on the task this early of going through the proposals one by one and trying to solicit opinions and thoughts,” he said. “It’s exciting to think that we’re setting the flagstones in the grass for what other Legislative Councils are going to do down the road, because certainly people will be looking to see what happens here in terms of how people are going to react in the future.”