Eric Ziady named New Athletic Director

Delaware President Patrick Harker announced that Eric Ziady would be the new Director of Intercollegiate Athletics and Recreation Services.

 The announcement came at a press conference Wednesday afternoon. The hiring makes Ziady just the fifth athletic director for Delaware since 1940. 

“I really think this is a long-term hire,” said head football coach K.C. Keeler. “We have friends at Boston College and they were just like thumbs up, you guys got lucky.”

Ziady has spent the previous 14 years at Boston College holding various positions, including senior associate director of athletics for business operations for the past three years. Prior to being hired at Boston College, Ziady worked at Northeastern University for nine years. During his final four years at Northeastern University, he was the assistant director of athletics.

 While serving as the senior associate director of athletics for business operations at Boston College, Ziady oversaw the football, men’s and women’s golf and men’s and women’s sailing programs. Ziady handled several financial projects including long-range fiscal planning, the day-to-day administration of business and financial operations and football scheduling, among other responsibilities.

Ziady was impressed several years ago when he visited Delaware for the America East Basketball Championship tournaments while working at Northeastern. Although he was impressed with the facilities and community, one thing stood out above the rest.

“They always beat us,” Ziady said. “I was struck by the experience the kids had. It was a first rate experience.”

While at Boston College, Ziady was responsible for negotiating a multi-million dollar agreement with Under Armour that supplied equipment and apparel for all 31 sports programs. He was also instrumental to the planning of Boston College’s move to the Atlantic Coast Conference in 2005.   

Both Ziady and Harker emphasized their desire to remain competitive on the field but stressed the importance of maintaining academic excellence. Harker said Boston College’s student-athlete graduation rate of 97 percent is the second highest in the nation. 

“I know that Eric shares our fundamental goal to serve and educate students who will lead in competition in the classroom and in the community,” Harker said.

After former athletic director Bernard Muir left Delaware in July for the same position at Stanford, Harker created a search committee to find a replacement. The search committee was chaired by Monica Taylor, vice president for development and alumni relations and included several members of Delaware’s faculty including women’s basketball head coach Tina Martin and men’s soccer head coach Ian Hennessy. Ziady was chosen for the position from a pool of over 70 applicants.

“I am excited about the future of UD athletics and know we will be well positioned to take our programs to new levels of excellence under our new AD,” Taylor said.