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  Rick Greenspan

Rick Greenspan

Player Profile

Position:
Athletic Director

Since his arrival as Indiana University's 19th Athletics Director on Sept. 2, 2004, Rick Greenspan has enhanced and maintained the Hoosiers' broad-based, 24-sport program. During Greenspan's tenure, Indiana has:

• organized and led the first comprehensive capital campaign in the history of IU Athletics

• broken ground on a multi-million dollar facility enhancement project which includes the new north end zone facility, a basketball development center, academic resource center and new baseball and softball stadiums

• enjoyed a 40.8 percent increase in Varsity Club annual giving, recorded $24.5 million in gifts and pledges to the Big Ten's largest scholarship endowment and $8 million in capital support

• captured eight individual or team national titles and had an individual set a world record

• ranked among the Big Ten Conference leaders in academic all-league selections and saw an IU athlete earn an NCAA Post Graduate Scholarship for the third straight year in 2007.

• recorded two wins in annual Crimson and Gold Cup all-sports competition series with Purdue

• hired the late Terry Hoeppner as the head football coach, and saw him rejuvenate an IU fan base that contributed to a 39 percent increase in per game attendance, a 46 percent increase in overall season ticket sales and a 110 percent increase in student season ticket sales.

• provided leadership in the wake of the death of Hoeppner. The Hoosiers earned their first bowl trip since 1993 under Bill Lynch, who Greenspan subsequently appointed head coach following the regular season.

• hired Tom Crean to lead the IU basketball program. Crean averaged over 20 wins a season in nine years at Marquette and led the Golden Eagles to five NCAA Tournament appearances including the 2003 Final Four,

• hired Tracy Smith as the baseball coach and Felisha Legette-Jack as the women's basketball coach - both coaches have those respective programs on the rise

• also hired Sherry Dunbar to guide the volleyball program, Michelle Gardner to head the softball program, Randy Bloemendall to lead the men's tennis program and Ron Helmer to serve as director of track and field and men's and women's head coach this past year

• overseen the installation of a new $1.99 million scoreboard/video board, the field hockey team's move from Mellencamp Pavilion to a new outdoor facility in 2007 and the installation of a new, banked indoor track at Gladstein Fieldhouse

Greenspan also currently serves on the Big Ten Compliance and Reinstatement Committee.

Greenspan arrived in Bloomington after spending the previous six years as the Director of Athletics at the United States Military Academy at West Point. At Army, Greenspan led a program with a $23 million budget that served nearly 800 student-athletes. While there, Greenspan oversaw the design and construction of several major athletics facilities and the updating of older ones. Greenspan's aggressive facilities improvement program included the Kimsey Athletic Center and the Hoffman Press Box. The Gross Sports Center, the home of Army Gymnastics; the Lichtenberg Tennis Center; the Tronsrue Marksmanship Center; the Malek Tennis Center and the new Army Softball Complex were also completed during his tenure.

He overhauled the annual giving program, which resulted in a 300-percent increase in gifts, and he created a system of coaches' accountability and support programs in which 34 percent of all student-athletes were recognized on the dean's list.

Army teams were highly competitive on Greenspan's watch. In overall sports standings in the Patriot League, Army's men's and women's athletic teams finished second in the league's President's Cup standings from 2002-04.

Before going to Army, Greenspan was director of intercollegiate athletics at Illinois State University from 1993-99, where he managed a 19-sport NCAA Division I program on a $10 million budget and developed a reserve in excess of $5 million. Athletics facilities and student-athlete support services were enhanced during his watch, and ISU teams received the Missouri Valley Conference All-Sports Trophy, an honor representative of overall athletic program excellence, four times - 1993, 1996, 1997 and 1998. The rate of student-athlete graduation was nearly 70 percent, well above that of the general student population on campus.

Greenspan's leadership has extended into the athletic conferences with which he has been associated as well as with the NCAA. He was chairperson of the Patriot League Athletic Administration Committee. He was a member of the board of trustees of the NCAA Division I-A Athletics Director's Association, a member of the NCAA Management Council and a member of the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics Executive Committee. While at ISU, he was the Gateway Football Conference President, chaired the Missouri Valley Conference media, championship and finance committees, and was a member of the Gender Equity, Long-Range Planning and Expansion Committee for the Missouri Valley/Gateway Conference.

Greenspan spent one year as senior associate athletics director at the University of Miami (Fla.) before becoming athletics director at ISU.

Prior to his time at Miami, he was at the University of California at Berkeley for eight years, where he was associate athletics director for external affairs and also served as acting athletics director for one year. Greenspan held positions in physical education and recreational sports at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee and the University of New Hampshire at the beginning of his career.

He earned a master's degree in physical education with an athletics administration emphasis from Idaho State University in Pocatello, Idaho. He also has a bachelor's degree in behavioral science from the University of Maryland, where he was a four-year letterwinner in baseball.

A native of Greenbelt, Md., Greenspan and his wife Jenny have two grown children - Emily, 26, a graduate of the University of Connecticut; and Ben, 23, a graduate student at Indiana and a former two-year letterwinner on the Hoosier baseball team.