Joan Cronan - Women's Athletic Director Emeritus - Staff Directory

Staff Directory

Joan Cronan

Title:
Women's Athletic Director Emeritus
Email:
Phone:
(865) 567-1319

Updated: August 2021

Under the vision and direction of Joan Cronan, the University of Tennessee Lady Vols garnered a reputation as one of the most visible and respected programs throughout the nation. UT’s success in both the athletic and academic realms spoke volumes about her decision-making and leadership ability.

She now serves the university in an advisory role as Women's Athletic Director Emeritus.

A history-maker and member of several halls of fame, Cronan holds the distinction of becoming the first female athletics director for the entire department at UT when she served as Interim Vice Chancellor and Athletics Director in 2011.

Tennessee’s volleyball program now trains in the beautiful Joan Cronan Volleyball Center, which opened in 2014 and is accessed via a campus road named Joan Cronan Way. After all, it was during her AD tenure that UT expanded its women’s athletic program from seven to 11 sports with the additions of golf, rowing, soccer and softball. She also instituted a fruitful endowment scholarship program on the women’s side.

Cronan grew up in Opelousas, La., but she quickly became a Cajun with orange blood when she arrived in Knoxville in 1968 to teach at the University of Tennessee and coach women’s basketball. After serving as a coach, professor and athletics director at the College of Charleston from 1973-83, she and her family returned to East Tennessee in 1983 and made Knoxville their permanent home.

She forged a highly-decorated career in collegiate athletics as an administrator and advocate for student-athletes at UT. She is respected nationally for her skills as a leader, motivator, strategic thinker, public speaker and team builder and for the integrity with which she runs an organization.

Taking over as women’s athletics director at Tennessee in 1983, she gradually expanded the program from seven to 11 sports, and helped the department increase annual giving from $75,000 to more than $2 million per year.

Cronan introduced events such as the recurring Salute to Excellence fundraising dinner, and dozens of women’s scholarships were endowed during her tenure. She also transformed UT’s women’s athletic facilities, overseeing the contruction of several state-of-the-art venues.

She also was influential in Tennessee’s operating budget for women’s athletics growing to nearly $30 million by the time the university merged it’s men’s and women’s departments in 2012.

When Cronan was initially handed the reins on Rocky Top, she was the only female AD at annual SEC meetings, providing a unique perspective during discussions on governance, media rights, compliance and myriad other topics that shaped the collegiate landscape for nearly three decades.

During her 29-year tenure, Tennessee women’s teams won 10 NCAA Championships, 22 SEC regular season titles and 33 league tourney trophies, finishing first or second in the SEC All-Sports Award race six times. Tennessee women’s teams logged 78 top-10 finishes under her leadership, including 41 top-five finishes.

Cronan teamed with legendary basketball coach Pat Head Summitt to transform the Lady Vols brand into the worldwide standard bearer and vanguard of excellence in women’s athletics. Together, the duo led the Lady Vols basketball program to eight national championship, and Summitt totaled 1,098 wins en route to induction into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

Cronan made Tennessee one of the first schools in the nation whose women’s basketball team traveled via charter flights, and Summitt’s salary grew to more than $2 million—at one point exceeding the salary of the men’s basketball head coach.

The athletic success modeled by Lady Vol teams during the Cronan era was matched by an expectation for high achievement in the classroom (exhibited by a 98 percent graduation rate) and a philosophy of giving back to the community.

Cronan was one of the first women to serve on the NCAA’s Executive Committee and Management Council, and in 2008, she became just the fourth woman to be named president of the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA), serving in 2008-09.

Her personal record of service throughout the athletics landscape is extensive. Cronan is a former president of the National Association of Collegiate Women Athletics Administrators (NACWAA) and was named its AD of the Year in 2005. She also served on NCAA’s Championship Cabinet and Leadership Council.

“Joan took Tennessee athletics to unbelievable heights,” longtime University of Texas women’s AD Chris Plonsky said. “Joan was one of the first women to take on a leadership role, not just on her campus but nationally through NCAA committees. And she was doing this at a critical time of change for women’s athletics. It tells you just how well-respected she was at Tennessee by her chancellor and the board.”

Once a nationally ranked doubles tennis player, Cronan is a two-time graduate of LSU. She earned her B.S. in 1966 and her M.S. in 1968, both in physical education. In 1995, she was inducted into the LSU Alumni Hall of Distinction.

In 1967, she took a job coaching basketball, tennis and volleyball at Northwestern State. When her husband took a GA position in Knoxville in 1968, women’s sports at Tennessee were club programs administered out of the Physical Education Department. She inquired about coaching the women’s basketball team and was appointed to the position by Dr. Helen Watson for the 1968-69 and 1969-70 seasons. Cronan also taught Physical Education courses.

She later transitioned to the College of Charleston, where she served women’s tennis coach, women’s volleyball coach, women’s basketball coach and was the women’s athletics director for a decade. During her tenure, the CofC athletics program was struggling to reestablish itself in a new and competitive field of competition as well as increasing the variety of its sports programs. It was also during this time period in which the CofC women’s sports programs began to flourish and receive national attention. Under Cronan, the College of Charleston was selected as the No. 1 women’s athletics program in the country in 1980 by the American Women’s Sports Foundation.

In 1983, University of Tennessee President Dr. Edward J. Boling sought to replace outgoing women’s AD Gloria Ray, and Summitt encouraged Cronan to consider the job. Plans were underway to build a 24,500-seat basketball arena, and Boling selected Cronan to lead UT’s women’s athletic program into an exciting new era. The across-the-board results under her uncanny leadership were extraordinary.

Cronan has been inducted into seven different halls of fame: College of Charleston Hall of Fame (1993), Fellowship of Christian Athletes Hall of Champions (2003), Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame (2008), Greater Knoxville Sports Hall of Fame (2015), the NACDA Hall of Fame (2018), the Society of Health and Physical Educators Hall of Fame (2018) and the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame (contributor, 2019). She also has served as a past president of the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame.

Cronan has been active on the boards of First Tennessee Bank, Carson-Newman College, The Pat Summitt Foundation, UT Business School’s Department of Management, the U.S. Sports Academy and the YMCA, and she has served as vice chair of the Leadership Knoxville board. In addition, she works closely with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and Athletes in Action. She serves as a deacon at Knoxville’s Central Baptist Church-Bearden.

She and her husband, Tom, raised two daughters—Kristi and Stacey—and have five grandchildren.

Cronan served as Interim Vice Chancellor for Athletics (men’s and women’s) from June 9, 2011 until Sept. 5, 2011. She then remained in the role of Women’s Director of Athletics until June 30, 2012, when Dave Hart took control of UT’s combined men’s and women’s athletics department.