UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Penn State Director of Athletics Sandy Barbour is listed just outside the Top 10 in a recent Forbes ranking of the Most Powerful Women in Sports.
In her second year directing the Nittany Lions' 31-sport program, Barbour is No. 11 in the Forbes listing of the Top 25 Most Powerful Women in Sports. Barbour is among four women listed who primarily work in intercollegiate athletics and is the highest ranked athletic director.
Condoleezza Rice, Serena and Venus Williams, Billie Jean King, Danica Patrick, Val Ackerman, Debbie Yow, Jeanie Buss, Becky Hammon and Maria Sharapova are among the women who joined Barbour on the distinguished list. The complete listing of Forbes' Most Powerful Women in Sports can be found here.
Barbour began her dynamic leadership of the Penn State Intercollegiate Athletics program in August 2014 and has quickly made a strong impression on one of the nation's most successful and comprehensive athletic departments. She directs Penn State's broad-based program that supports approximately 800 student-athletes and an Intercollegiate Athletics staff of nearly 300.
During the past year, Barbour has begun to implement her vision for Penn State Intercollegiate Athletics. In March, she announced a reorganization of ICA that introduced a more vertical structure to encourage communication and collaboration across business units and sports. Four administrative divisions were formed: business and finance; student-athlete performance, health and welfare; internal and external operation and administration.
This past summer, Penn State launched a wide-ranging strategic planning process and conducted a series of town hall meetings, where students, faculty and staff, alumni and donors were presented with some of the initial findings of the project and had an opportunity to ask questions and provide feedback. The project will help determine strategies and priorities for the period of 2016-20 and beyond and should be completed in early 2016.
One of the nation's most highly-respected athletic directors, Barbour also is overseeing a facilities master planning process that began in October. Penn State has partnered with Populous, one of the world's leading architecture and sport event planning firms, to collaborate on programming, developing and producing a comprehensive facilities master plan to address current and long-term needs for all of the Nittany Lions' facilities (competition, practice, performance enhancement and training) and office space.
Barbour began her tenure in Happy Valley with the women's volleyball program capturing the 2014 NCAA Championship and conference titles from the women's soccer, men's gymnastics, women's lacrosse and men's volleyball teams. This fall, Barbour has seen three more titles with the women's soccer team winning the Big Ten regular season and tournament titles and women's cross country team capturing the Big Ten Championship. On Friday, the women's soccer team plays Rutgers in the NCAA College Cup semifinals in Cary, North Carolina.
Penn State finished No. 8 in the 2014-15 Learfield Sports Directors' Cup standings to cap Barbour's first year in Happy Valley. Twenty Nittany Lion squads competed in their respective NCAA Championships, the football team won the New Era Pinstripe Bowl, and 30 teams participated in post-season competition. Nine Penn State teams advanced to or finished in the Top/Elite 8 of their respective NCAA Championship in 2014-15. The Nittany Lions also captured individual NCAA titles in men's fencing, men's gymnastics and wrestling.
Penn State student-athletes delivered record-setting academic performances during Barbour's inaugural year, including the two highest 3.0 grade-point totals in a semester in school history. During the 2014 fall semester, a school record 500 Nittany Lions earned at least a 3.0 grade-point average. Another mark was broken with 241 student-athletes garnering Dean's List honors by posting a GPA of 3.50 or higher. A total of 23 teams earned a semester GPA of 3.0 or higher for another Penn State mark.
A native of Annapolis, Maryland, Barbour joined several head coaches, Nittany Lion Club and Alumni Association staff members on the Penn State Coaches Caravan last May. At each of her 11 stops across Pennsylvania and the Mid-Atlantic, Barbour met with alumni, fans and students and shared her vision for Penn State Athletics and creating the best conditions possible for student-athlete success in the classroom and on the playing field.
A Wake Forest graduate and student-athlete, Barbour brought to Penn State more than 30 years of varied experiences as a collegiate administrator and coach, with a demonstrated record of championships, academic success, innovation, facility modernization and revenue growth. President Eric J. Barron named Barbour the Nittany Lions' 9th director of athletics after serving 10 years as director of athletics at the University of California.
Forbes assembled a panel of eight individuals who have first-hand insight and knowledge of sport's top female movers and shakers to determine the rankings.
According to Forbes, the panelists were asked to consider the following when nominating candidates for the list: (1) Quantitative Metrics, (2) Sphere of Influence, and (3) Impact. Quantitative Metrics related to specific measurable criteria such as organizational revenues the candidate is in charge of, as well as measurable career accomplishments (employees managed, sales figures etc.). Sphere of Influence asked panelists to take into consideration whether the candidate has influence outside their specific company or vertical, and whether they touch multiple areas of the sports industry. Finally, Impact relates to how actively and successfully the individual wield their power within their organization or brand, sector and the global stage.