It is with mixed emotions that I share that Joanne Renn, Executive
Director of Intercollegiate Athletics for the past 11 years, will retire
at the end of the current academic year. A good friend and colleague,
Joanne played an instrumental role in the implementation of several
important initiatives during my early tenure at Virginia Wesleyan. She
is the ranking female administrator at the University and serves on the
President’s Cabinet.
I am particularly grateful for her active
leadership in the expansion, updates, and improvements of our athletic
facilities. Birdsong Field, the Betty S. Rogers Track and Field Center,
development of the outdoor athletic complex (including relocation of The
Alpine Tower), upgrades and naming of Kenneth R. Perry Field, the new
East Gate entrance and Marlin Way, and the forthcoming TowneBank Park
and Broyles Field have all been made possible with her assistance. She
also was instrumental in the initiation of men’s and women’s swimming,
the Harlaxton College (England) relationship, and the establishment of
the Batten Honors College.
At the time of her appointment as
athletic director in 2007, Joanne was the first female AD at a
co-educational institution in the Old Dominion Athletic Conference
(ODAC). 2018 marks Joanne’s 25th year as a coach and administrator at
VWU, where she currently oversees 22 intercollegiate sports programs and
a staff of more than 55 coaches, administrators, and support personnel.
Virginia Wesleyan’s athletic program has seen many successes
under Joanne’s leadership. During her tenure, the men's basketball team
won the NCAA Division III National Championship in 2006 and the
following year returned to the championship game; the women's soccer
team made it to the final four in 2006 after winning the ODAC tournament
for the first time in program history; Evan Cox was the Individual NCAA
National Champion for men's golf in 2016; the Virginia Wesleyan
softball team won the NCAA Division III National Championship in 2017
with a national record 54 wins; and senior Marissa Coombs is a four-time
All-American in cross country and track and field.
Joanne has
held a variety of positions, including president of the Old Dominion
Athletic Conference. She was instrumental in securing VWU bids to host
NCAA tournament games in women’s basketball and field hockey, and she
has served as tournament director for countless post-season events. She
has served on numerous state and national committees, including service
with the NCAA, the Board of Directors of the Virginia Sports Hall of
Fame, the Hampton Roads Hall of Fame Committee, the Virginia Beach
Sports Grant Committee, and the Hampton Roads Sports Facility Authority.
Joanne
began her career at VWU as the head women's tennis coach in 1995, a
position she held through 1999. She also served VWU as the head women's
basketball coach from 1997 through 2003. She is a former teacher and
head girls' basketball coach at Norfolk Academy, where her teams
compiled a 250-128 record and won two conference championships and two
tournament titles. At Norfolk Academy, she was the former girls' tennis
coach where she led her teams to a 107-10 dual-match record and seven
consecutive Tidewater Conference of Independent Schools championships.
Joanne
is an accomplished wood-wind musician, an avid hiker and climber who
has ascended 48 North American peaks, including Mount Rainier, Mount
Hood, and the highest point in the USA, Mount Whitney; she has
backpacked the entire Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine, the John
Muir Trail in the Sierra Nevada mountain range in California and the
Colorado Trail; and she completed her trek through the Camino de
Santiago (The Way of St. James) in northwestern Spain in June 2013. She
hiked the Camino del Norte in the summer of 2015 and England's Coast to
Coast in 2016, and she attended the Harlaxton Summer Conference in
Grantham, England, in the summer of 2016.
Joanne received a
bachelor's degree in psychology from Old Dominion University, where she
was one of six original female athletic scholarship recipients,
competing in basketball and tennis, and received her master's degree in
human resource management from Troy University.
A search for
Joanne's successor has been ongoing for several months and an
announcement of a new executive director will be made tomorrow. Please
join me in expressing to her our appreciation for her years of service
to our institution along with our warmest good wishes as she embarks on
this new phase of her life.
