Athletic director to leave CC

0 Comments | Gazette, The (Colorado Springs), Mar 15, 2007 | by KATE CRANDALL THE GAZETTE

After three years as Colorado College athletic director, Julie Soriero will become athletic director at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, effective July 1, the schools announced Wednesday.

Citing a desire to return to her East Coast roots and for a new challenge, Soriero expressed mixed emotions.

"I'm a little overwhelmed right now," said the Pennsylvania native. "You give up what is known for what is unknown and that's a little frightening at times."

First contacted in October by a search firm, Soriero said she was not initially interested but began to contemplate the offer after a visit.

"What attracts me to MIT as an institution is its commitment to excellence," she said.

Terms of Soriero's five-year contract with MIT were not disclosed.

Colorado College president Dick Celeste said CC will conduct a national search for a replacement with a target hiring date of July 1.

"I'm sad for us but it's great for her," Celeste said. "It'd be nice if she could be in two places at once or if we could clone her."

While serving as interim athletic director in January 2004, Soriero fought an NCAA motion that would have jeopardized CC's two Division I sports -- women's soccer and men's ice hockey.

The campaign succeeded, and the NCAA voted to support an amendment allowing CC and the other seven schools that have Division I and III programs to continue offering scholarships to Division I athletes.

"It was trial by fire in that we had to work with other schools on a national strategy to save Division I scholarships for us and the other schools," Soriero said.

In April 2006, Soriero helped CC's Division I women's soccer team join Conference USA as an affiliate member. Also, nine of CC's 12 Division III sports gained admission into the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference, shifting from CC's long-standing status as an independent.

"Julie was great during the whole process," CC women's soccer coach Geoff Bennett said. "She was very supportive and understood how important it was to get affiliated with a conference. It gives us a national identity and she was behind it 100 percent... She's a big reason that we have gotten back to the point that we are."

Cross country, track and field, swimming and diving and tennis joined the SCAC for the 2006-07 school year.

Men's and women's basketball, football, men's soccer, softball and volleyball will join for the 2007-08 school year.

Tigers cross country and track and field coach Ted Castaneda lauded Soriero's initiative, which has helped his athletes become more competitive nationally.

Conference alignment "was long needed here," Castaneda said. "It was 15 years in the making, but she got it done."

Soriero, who served as interim athletic director twice, also served as CC's women's basketball coach from 1999-2001. She had previously coached basketball at Penn, Philadelphia University and Haverford College.

According to a 2004 study funded by the Women's Sports Foundation, only 187 women serve as athletic directors in about 1,000 Divisions I, II and III schools.

At Division III MIT, Soriero will join a network of women in leadership positions. Soriero will work under president Susan Hockfield and with Candace Royer, who was the previous athletic director and will raise funds for the athletic department as senior associate dean of student life.

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