Thursday, October 18, 2007

JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (Oct. 18, 2007) - East Tennessee State University President Dr. Paul E. Stanton, Jr., announced Thursday that Director of Intercollegiate Athletics Dave Mullins has agreed to a four-year contract extension.

"Dave Mullins has served and represented this university in an exemplary fashion through the many years he has been with us, from his tenure as the head men's tennis coach to his leadership as our Director of Intercollegiate Athletics since December 2002," said Stanton, in announcing the contract extension.  "Dave is a driving force in the athletics capital campaign, a guiding hand in our tremendous success in the Atlantic Sun Conference across the spectrum of our sports offerings, and he is certainly a role model for maintaining and enhancing the program's academic integrity."

Mullins, who assumed interim AD duties in December of 2002 and became the program's permanent director on April 14, 2003, said he has enjoyed leading the Buccaneers to new heights both athletically and academically over the last five years.

"I am very appreciative of Dr. Stanton's confidence in me to build on our recent successes and continue to build 17 championship-level programs throughout our department," Mullins said. "ETSU is an outstanding school. This is an exciting time to be in a leadership position because of all the great things that are happening, not just in athletics, but across our campus."

In his time as AD, Mullins has directed several new initiatives, including the current multi-million dollar capital campaign for athletics, which aims to build new, on-campus facilities for soccer, softball, track and field, baseball, tennis and basketball over the next several years. In addition, he has guided current facility improvements to Memorial Center, supported ventures such as the Mountain States Health Alliance Buccaneer Sports Network, maintained the program's high academic standards in the NCAA's Academic Performance Rating and championed 100 percent participation in community service by student-athletes, coaches and administrative staff.

Having spent 15 seasons as a tennis coach at ETSU prior to taking on AD duties, Mullins led the Bucs to 10 regular season and conference tournament titles, two NCAA tournament appearances and was named conference coach of the year five times. His desire for success has been translated across the entire athletic department, as the Bucs enjoyed the most successful athletic season in program history, having won a school record eight championships in 2006-07, and capturing the Atlantic Sun Conference's top honors for best men's program (Jesse C. Fletcher Trophy), women's program (Sherman Day Trophy) and overall program (Bill Bibb Trophy).

"My 20 years at ETSU have been very rewarding personally and professionally," Mullins said. "We have a tremendous administrative staff and an outstanding coaching staff who are working together as a team to produce quality programs that we can all take pride in. As we gain more support from our alumni, fans and the local business community, the future is very bright. I look forward to being a part of that growth."