Longwood Director of Athletics Troy Austin will step down to accept a position at his alma mater, Duke University, as senior associate athletics director for internal operations, Assistant Vice President of Athletics Communications Chris Cook confirmed Tuesday.
According to Cook, Deputy Athletics Director Michelle Shular will serve as interim Athletics Director for the remainder of the 2018-19 academic year.
“This is a bittersweet day,” Austin said in the Sept. 25 press release. “I have spent more than a decade calling myself a Lancer, celebrating our wins, commiserating our losses, and working alongside fantastic people and students who make Longwood University the special place that it is.”
In an email sent out to campus by President W. Taylor Reveley IV on Tuesday, he said Austin informed him Duke offered him a position “that would be very hard to refuse.” Austin told Reveley of his decision Monday, Sept. 24.
“In the midst of a busy and energetic semester, I write to share some bittersweet news,” Reveley said in his email. “He and I discussed it several times in recent days, and I know the decision was very difficult for him. But yesterday, he let me know he had decided to accept.”
Austin took the program over in 2008, less than a year after Longwood became a Division I institution. Four years after taking the reigns of the program, he secured the school’s Big South Conference membership in July 2012.
In the last year, Austin has lost and replaced numerous coaches, including both men’s and women’s tennis coaches and men’s and women’s basketball coaches. According to the press release, he believes the department is in “capable hands”.
Austin will return to Duke where he graduated in 2000 and played all four years on their football team. According to the press release, Austin will oversee human resources, athletic medicine, sports performance, sports nutrition, behavioral health and equipment, and will serve as the lead sport administrator for the men’s and women’s cross country and track and field teams.
According to Cook, Austin will serve as athletics director until mid-October when Shular will then take over as interim athletics director.
Longwood Director of Athletics Troy Austin is leaving Longwood for Duke University, his alma mater, starting in mid-October.
