2023-11-22 02:46:18
Associated Press
| Des Moines Register
NEW ORLEANS — Northern Iowa athletics director David Harris has been hired to take over Tulane’s athletics department, university president Michael A. Fitts announced Tuesday.
Harris, a native of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, was named Athletics Director of the Year by the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics in 2021. He’ll officially take over in January for Troy Dannen, who left Tulane on Oct. 7 for a similar post at Washington. Dannen also is a former UNI athletics director.
Harris will take over an athletics program that is “at a high point in its long and storied history,” Fitts said.
Tulane had one of the best football seasons in program history a year ago, culminating with an American Athletic Conference championship and a victory over USC in the Cotton Bowl.
This season, Tulane’s football team is 10-1 and can clinch a spot in a second straight conference title game by beating visiting UTSA on Friday.
Harris said returning to his home state, and to the same region as his wife’s hometown of Natchez, Mississippi, helped draw him to the job.
Harris has been athletics director at UNI since 2016 and projects he has overseen there have included a major renovation of the UNI-Dome, construction of a softball hitting facility, outdoor tennis courts, a football team meeting room, an outdoor football practice field and the replacement of the playing surfaces for football as well as basketball and volleyball.
Harris also serves on NCAA committees attending to such matters as equity and diversity, and student-athlete transfers. He is a member of the NCAA’s Division I Council, the NCAA’s Council Coordination Committee and Chair of the NCAA’s Women’s Basketball Oversight Committee.
UNI president Mark Nook indicated that he intends to appoint an interim athletics director as soon as possible before conducting a national search to fill the position on a full-time basis.
“We sincerely appreciate the contributions that David and his team made during his time at UNI,” Nook said in a news release. “We wish David, Felicia and their family the very best at Tulane.
“We anticipate this position at UNI will attract significant interest from athletics administrators from across the country. The Panthers boast one of the most accomplished, talented and experienced head coaching rosters of any NCAA Division I program in the Midwest. I’m extremely confident that we will be able to identify and hire a new athletic director who can build on our rich history and winning tradition. We will have no further comment on our search process until we name our interim athletic director.”
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