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Director of Athletics Tim Curley
Well into his second decade as the architect of the Penn State Intercollegiate Athletics program, Tim Curley’s dynamic and passionate leadership has been the driving force behind the Nittany Lions’ tremendous level of athletic and academic achievement. Named Director of Athletics on December 30, 1993, Curley’s leadership has positioned Penn State among the nation’s premier athletic departments. During the Nittany Lions’ 17 full years as members of the Big Ten Conference, Penn State has captured 19 NCAA Championships, more than double the next closest Big Ten schools. Curley has seen Nittany Lion squads win 61 Big Ten titles and numerous individual national and conference crowns during his 16-plus years directing Penn State’s comprehensive and nationally-respected athletic program. The Lions have won eight NCAA Championships since March 2007. During the 2009 fall semester, the women’s volleyball team won an unprecedented third consecutive NCAA Championship, rallying from a 2-0 deficit to defeat Texas, 3-2, in an epic title match. Penn State won its seventh consecutive outright Big Ten crown and extended its winning streak to 102 matches, the second-longest streak by any team in NCAA Division I history. The football team won 11 games for the 15th time under Joe Paterno and won its fourth bowl game in the past five years. The women’s soccer team captured its 12th consecutive Big Ten Championship, tying the longest string of Big Ten women’s titles all-time in any sport. The women’s cross country team won the 2009 Big Ten title, the program’s first, and the women’s indoor track and field team captured the 2010 crown. In the spring of 2010, the fencing team won its 10th NCAA Championship under Curley’s watch. The women’s track and field team captured its third consecutive Big Ten outdoor title, for the “Triple Crown,” giving Penn State five league titles in 2009-10. Nineteen squads were represented in their respective NCAA Championships or a bowl game in 2009-10. Include the 44 All-Americans and 40 first-team All-Big Ten selections (48 total first-team all-conference honorees), a recordtying student-athlete Graduation Success Rate of 89 percent and 10 Academic All-Americans and 2009-10 was another tremendous year of Success With Honor for the Nittany Lions. A 1976 Penn State graduate, Curley’s dedicated and enthusiastic leadership has helped Penn State capture 24 Big Ten championships or tournament titles the past five years, the second-highest total in the conference. In 2008-09, the women’s volleyball team captured its second consecutive NCAA title, earning a 38-0 record, and its sixth consecutive outright Big Ten Championship. The football team won its second conference title in four years and played in the 2009 Rose Bowl. The Nittany Lion basketball team won its first National Invitation Tournament championship, posting a program-record 27 victories, and the fencing team won another NCAA Championship. In 2007-08, Penn State became just the second school in NCAA history to have both volleyball teams win the national championship in the same academic year. During the fall 2005 semester, Penn State won an unprecedented five Big Ten Championships - in field hockey, football, men’s soccer, women’s soccer and women’s volleyball — becoming the first institution to win more than three titles in the fall season in Big Ten history. Nittany Lion teams compiled an incredible 49-1 record against Big Ten competition in the fall.
In June 2009, Curley again was recognized for his efforts in helping Penn State maintain its stature as one of the nation’s premier athletic programs with his selection as the Northeast Athletic Director-of-the-Year by NACDA. He was one of just four regional Division I-A honorees and also earned it in 2003. As he surveys the athletic program he has been instrumental in assembling over the past 34 years, Tim Curley can’t help but be proud of the athletic and academic accomplishments of Penn State’s 750 student-athletes in 29 varsity sports: • During a visit to the University Park campus, late NCAA President Myles Brand stated, “Penn State is the poster child for doing it right in college sports.” • In the initial 17 years of the NACDA Directors’ Cup allsports survey, Penn State has finished in the Top 25 every year, earning seven Top 10 finishes, with 12 placings in the Top 15. The Lions finished No. 11 in 2009-10 and are one of only 10 programs nationwide to have finished in the Top 25 every year. • In the most recent comprehensive look at the 117 colleges and universities participating in Division I football and men’s basketball, U.S. News and World Report selected Penn State as one of 10 Division I-A institutions for its College Sports Honor Roll. Data on gender equity, number of varsity sports, graduation rates, sanctions, and wins and losses were analyzed to determine the listing. • Penn State has captured 19 NCAA Championships in men’s and women’s volleyball; men’s and women’s fencing and men’s gymnastics during Curley’s tenure. Nittany and Lady Lion teams have made 31 NCAA “Final Four” appearances during his tenure. • Penn State also has established itself as a force in the highly competitive Big Ten - winning 65 regular-season or tournament titles in football, baseball, women’s basketball, field hockey, men’s gymnastics, men’s soccer, women’s soccer, men’s & women’s swimming & diving, women’s indoor & outdoor track & field and cross country, and women’s volleyball. The Lions won a schoolrecord six titles in 2005-06, a mark they matched in 2008-09. • In November 2009, the NCAA reported that Penn State student-athletes earned a school-record tying 89 percent Graduation Success Rate, 10 points higher than the national Division I-A average. Twenty-three of Penn State’s 25 teams compiled a GSR at or above the national average of 79 percent or higher (track and field and cross country count as one sport). Twenty-one Penn State squads earned a GSR higher than the national average for their sport, according to the NCAA. The NCAA also reported in 2009 that Penn State student-athletes registered a four-year federal graduation rate of 82 percent, significantly above the 63 percent national average. Penn State’s GSR and four-year federal graduation rates were second-highest in the Big Ten to Northwestern. • The 2009 NCAA report also showed that Penn State’s African-American student-athletes earned a four-year federal 78 percent graduation rate, 25 points higher than the 53 percent Division I national average. Of the Penn State student-athletes in the NCAA studies from 1993-94 through 2002-03 who exhausted their eligibility, 96 percent left with their diplomas. • In June 2010, the NCAA reported that 12 Penn State teams earned a perfect Academic Progress Rate score of 1,000 in 200809 and that 24 teams had a four-year APR score at or above the Division I average for their respective sport. • During the 2009 fall semester, 189 Penn State student-athletes compiled a 3.50 grade-point average or higher to gain Dean’s List recognition (minimum of 12 credits). A total of 415 studentathletes earned a GPA of 3.0 or above, representing 58 percent of active student-athletes during the fall semester. • In 2009-10, 235 Penn State student-athletes received Academic All-Big Ten honors. Over the past 16 years, Penn State leads all Big Ten institutions with 3,547 all-academic honorees. • A total of 10 student-athletes earned ESPN The Magazine/CoSIDA Academic All-America accolades in 2009-10 on the heels of a school-record 11 the year prior. Penn State has 160 such selections all-time, with 112 in the last 16-plus years under Curley’s leadership, a figure higher than any other Big Ten school’s all-time total, since the program began in 1952. To continue to give the coaching staff and student-athletes the resources to succeed academically and athletically, Curley has guided the most ambitious fund-raising and athletics facilities campaigns in the department’s history. The “For The Future” Campaign entered the public phase in April 2010 and will conclude in 2014. More than $128 million was raised for Intercollegiate Athletics through June 2008 to easily surpass the Success With Honor Campaign goal of $100 million.
The Athletics physical plant has improved substantially under Curley’s watch. The Nittany Lion Softball Park, golf clubhouse, soccer practice fields and men’s and women’s basketball offices are among projects recently completed or under construction. The most recently completed capital project was a new baseball stadium — Medlar Field at Lubrano Park. The Penn State baseball team shares the state-of-the-art facility with a short-season minor league team — the State College Spikes. Curley played a significant role in developing the unique partnership for the construction of the 5,406-seat stadium, which opened in June 2006. The 12,500-seat expansion and renovation of Beaver Stadium was completed in 2001, raising the capacity to 107,282. The project included private suite and club level seating previously unavailable and creation of the Penn State All-Sports Museum to house the University’s impressive collection of sports memorabilia. Other facility projects completed in the past decade include the Lasch Football Building, Ashenfelter Indoor Multi-Sport Facility and Sarni Tennis Center and renovations to the White Building, East Area Locker Room, Jeffrey Field and a field hockey facility. Curley also oversees the expansive intramural/club sport programs — which included a fourth consecutive national championship in men’s ice hockey in 2003 and women’s rugby national titles in 2004, ‘09 and ‘10 — on the University Park campus, as well as general recreational activities. He’s charged as well with responsibility for the athletic and recreational programs at Penn State’s Commonwealth Campuses. It is a dizzying pace for Curley, who is a regular presence at athletic events, team banquets, alumni meetings and regional and national meetings of athletic administrators. Curley served as president of the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA) in 2005-06. He was the first Penn State Athletic Director to serve as president of NACDA, which is a professional and educational association for more than 6,100 athletic administrators at more than 1,600 institutions in the United States, Canada and Mexico. Elected a NACDA officer in 2002, Curley is a recent member of the NCAA Committee on Academic Performance (CAP) and the Board of Directors of the Honda Collegiate Women Sports Awards. He also is on the Boards of Visitors for Penn State’s John Curley Center for Sports Journalism and the advisory board for the Center for Sports Business and Research in The Smeal College of Business. Curley also was appointed to a special NCAA task force that reviewed Division I recruiting bylaws and to the NCAA Division I Football Issues Committee, a group which he chaired. He previously was a member of the NCAA Division I Championships/ Competition Cabinet and served as chair of the NCAA Postseason Bowl Certification Sub-Committee. It is no exaggeration to say Tim Curley is someone who knows the Penn State athletic program from the ground up. A State College product, he grew up across the street from New Beaver Field where some of his most memorable days as a youngster were spent there and in Rec Hall. He parked cars, sold game programs and served as a baseball batboy. The top assistant to Athletic Director Jim Tarman, Curley was named Director of Athletics on December 30, 1993, when Tarman retired after 35 years as a Penn State athletic administrator. Curley, 56, has been a full-time member of the athletic staff since he joined the department as a graduate assistant football coach. A product of State College Area High School where he played basketball and football for Jim Williams’ undefeated 1971 team, Curley walked on as a football player only to have his career cut short by injuries. After earning his bachelor’s degree in health and physical education in 1976, he was a graduate assistant coach while pursuing his master’s degree in counselor education. Curley was named the Lions’ first full-time football recruiting coordinator in 1978 and was instrumental in identifying and recruiting a number of members of the 1982 national championship team. In 1981, he was named assistant to the athletic director where he was involved with the day-to-day operations of the department. Curley was active in the development of the Academic Support Center for Student-Athletes; the Penn State Sports Medicine Center; the Varsity “S” Club and the Football Letterman’s Club during his tenure as assistant to the athletic director. He also was instrumental in putting in place Penn State’s first NCAA compliance program and acted as the department’s compliance coordinator for five years before surrendering those responsibilities when he was named Associate Athletic Director in 1992. He is married to the former Melinda Harr of Washington, Pa., who earned degrees from Penn State in 1977 and 1986. The Curleys have two children — a daughter, Devon, and a son, Tanner.
1999, 2007, 2008 & 2009 NCAA NATIONAL CHAMPIONS, 29 CONSECUTIVE NCAA TOURNAMENT APPEARANCES
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