UVA athletics announces staff promotions

UVA director of athletics Craig Littlepage announced Wednesday (Aug. 12) the elevation of six staff members. Valerie Richardson, Steve Pritzker, and Todd Goodale, and have been promoted to senior associate athletics directors. Eric Baumgartner and Adrien Harraway, who has been promoted to associate athletics director for student services, will join the current senior administrative team of Littlepage, Jon Oliver, Jane Miller, Dirk Katstra, Richardson, Pritzker, and Goodale. Kelli Pugh is now assistant athletics director for sports medicine.

“In order for us to reach our long-term goals it’s important that we have the right people on the bus and in the right positions,” Littlepage said. “These promotions recognize the work of Valerie, Steve, Todd, Adrien, Eric and Kelli and strengthens our administrative team to support our high-achieving student-athletes and coaches. We will continue to examine our organization to make sure staff members are aligned properly for the department to maximize its performance.”

Senior Staff Structure

Oliver, Virginia’s executive associate athletics director, serves as the number two administrator in athletics and is responsible for the day-to-day operations of the department. Oliver is the administrative liaison the football, men’s basketball, and men’s tennis programs in addition to being a member of the ACC’s Finance Committee.

Miller, senior associate athletics director for programs, is the first Senior Women’s Administrator appointed to the NCAA Division I Board of Directors and she participates in the overall governance of NCAA Division I Athletics. Miller also serves on a number of NCAA and ACC committees in addition to overseeing the baseball, women’s basketball, field hockey, men’s golf, women’s golf, men’s lacrosse, women’s lacrosse, and women’s soccer programs.

Katstra, executive director of the Virginia Athletics Foundation (VAF) and senior associate athletics director, will continue to lead all fund raising efforts for athletics and supervise the men’s and women’s swimming and diving programs. In February Virginia announced the All In For Excellence fund raising initiative designed to support the athletics department’s ten-year goals and to significantly increase funding for student-athlete scholarships, endowment, and operations. Fund raising for facility projects will soon be added to the All In For Excellence initiative as donors are identified to support these projects. To meet the goals of this initiative, Katstra and the Virginia Athletics Foundation staff must increase the donor base and funding for each of the identified categories of need.

Goodale has been promoted to senior associate athletics director for external affairs. He currently oversees the athletics department’s marketing and promotions, media relations, ticketing, strategic ticketing, and video services units and is the University’s licensing director. Goodale was a staff member of UVa’s multi-media rights holder properties from 1995-2004 before becoming the athletics department’s director of video services. He was elevated to associate athletics director for marketing and video services in 2006.

Pritzker has been promoted senior associate athletics director for business operations and chief financial officer (CFO) for the department. He returned to UVa in 2013 after a year as the University of Iowa’s head rowing coach. Pritzker will supervise Virginia’s rowing program as part of his new role as senior associate athletics director. He spent nine years as a member of the Cavaliers’ rowing coaching staff from 2004 to 2012. In 2007 he was promoted to associate head coach. During his time as a coach at Virginia, Pritzker helped guide the Cavaliers to NCAA team championships in 2010 and 2012. He also coached the Varsity 4 to four individual national championships and the Cavaliers won eight ACC titles.

Richardson has been promoted to senior associate athletics director for programs. A member of Virginia’s senior administrative team for the last seven years, Richardson supervises the men’s and women’s cross country and track and field, men’s soccer, softball, women’s tennis, volleyball and wrestling programs. She also participates on various ACC, UVa and departmental committees and has responsibilities in long-range planning and scheduling, policy and procedure development and implementation, and budgeting.

Baumgartner joined the University of Virginia athletics department in October 2011 as associate athletics director of compliance. He came to Charlottesville from the University of Georgia, where he was the associate athletics director of compliance.

Harraway has been promoted to associate athletics director for student services. He has served as associate athletics director of academic affairs since January 2012. Under his direction, the academic affairs unit has helped UVa student-athletes excel in the classroom. The department’s overall student-athlete grade point average has been 3.0 in three of the last four semesters. The overall student-athlete grade point average of 3.022 for the Spring 2015 semester was the highest since 2003. As part of his expanded responsibilities, Harraway will supervise Virginia’s Life Skills Program.

Pugh Named Assistant Athletics Director for Sports Medicine

Pugh has been promoted to assistant athletics director for sports medicine. She will continue to serve as the primary care provider for the Virginia football program. She’s responsible for all aspects of the team’s athletic training regimen, including evaluation, treatment and rehabilitation of injuries. In 2010 the Virginia Athletic Trainers’ Association (VATA) honored Pugh as its College/University Athletic Trainer of the Year.