Monica Gordy Polizzi enters her first year as the Director of Athletics and Campus Recreation at Salisbury University in 2023-24. Polizzi leads an athletics and recreation department of the 21 highly-successful NCAA Division III programs, club sports and recreation programs at SU.
Polizzi comes to SU from Lenoir-Rhyne University in Hickory, N.C., where she served as Senior Associate Athletic Director of Internal Operations. Prior to that, she spent 11 years at Mars Hill University (N.C.), including eight as head softball coach and three as Assistant Director of Athletics.
At Lenoir-Rhyne, Polizzi oversaw six intercollegiate sports, served as chief financial officer for a multi-million-dollar athletics budget and assisted in all head coaches and athletics staff hires, among other duties.
From 2008-2011, Polizzi served as head softball coach at Louisburg College (N.C.), following assistant and graduate assistant coaching positions at Upper Iowa University and Wayne State College (Neb.). As a coach, she led student-athletes to successes including All-American honors, South Atlantic Conference (SAC) All-Conference selections, SAC Softball Scholar-Athlete of the Year, and NCAA Region X Player of the Year and All-Region selections.
She currently chairs the NCAA National Committee for Division II football — the first woman to hold that position, as well — and serves on the NCAA Regional Advisory Committee for the sport. She is a past member of the NCAA Regional Advisory Committee for Division II softball and has served on multiple committees for the SAC.
Professionally, Polizzi was one of only 24 women from all NCAA divisions selected to participate in the NCAA's 2020 Lessons in Management workshop. She also was selected as one of eight mentees to participate in the 2022 Division II Athletic Directors Association Women and Minorities Mentorship program, offered through the Division II Athletic Directors Association and NCAA, and has served as a delegate at multiple NCAA conventions. In addition, she previously has been selected to attend the Women Leaders in College Sports national convention and will attend its executive institute for senior administrators in all NCAA divisions this summer.
On the field, she was a four-year softball starter and team captain at the Florida Institute of Technology, where she earned her B.A. in psychology. A 2000 graduate of Parkside High School in Salisbury, she helped lead the Rams' softball team to four post-season appearances, including the Maryland state finals.
