Andrea Williams says UIC having a woman as director of athletics is a big deal to student athletes
In the world of sports leadership, one would be hard pressed find a résumé more impressive than Andrea Williams.
Williams has had quite the career in sports, but she is now working for the first time at a school — as the new Director of Athletics at the University of Illinois Chicago.
As she put it, she gets to be a bit of a homer for a change — and she is certainly excited for this new challenge.
Williams is settling into her new role at UIC with big goals in mind.
"We want to strive to be excellent," said Williams, "so that means whether it's our student athletes in the classroom, if it's on the court, we want to win championships. We want to be able to hoist trophies."
Williams was named the UIC Flames' new director of athletics in November. A former Division I volleyball and basketball player at Texas A&M, she understands what it means to be a student athlete and how she can be a role model.
"I even have had some conversations with our student athletes here, especially our female athletes, and it's a big deal. It's a big deal for them to be able to walk these halls and say: 'Wow, we've got a woman as our athletics director! Wow, we've got a woman of color in this position!' because representation does matter," she said. "If you want to be at the highest level in whatever craft that you have, it's possible — and what's great is you can get there from here."
Williams got to UIC by forging an impressive, trailblazing path that included working for the Big Ten Conference — where as associate commissioner in 2011, she was in charge of the inaugural Big Ten Football Championship Game.
"When you're talking about a historic conference that was established in 1892, and this is the first ever football championship game, and you had a woman running a male-dominated sport," Williams said. "That was a big deal."
Williams has also worked with the Utah Jazz, the NCAA, the College Football Playoff, and the Big Sky Conference — where in 2016, she became the first African American woman to serve as a conference commissioner at the Division I level.
"One thing that actually really saddens me about that appointment is the fact that I should not have been the first, right?" said Williams. "Like in 2016, all the incredible African American women that came before me that had wonderful success, experience, background, education, that should have been first. You know, I wish I was like the 100th. But that just wasn't the case, and so I recognize it, I wear it as a badge of honor, but I also know that it comes with a great, you know, line of responsibility as well."
Now, Williams' responsibility is leading the athletics program at UIC — a job that comes with its own challenges in the ever-changing college landscape of conference realignment, revenue sharing, and of course, students being able to profit from their name, image, and likeness.
"That's going to be a challenge, especially for smaller schools that perhaps have smaller budgets, and we just have to figure out like how to be creative — again, if that's a space that we opt to be a part of, we have to find new ways to be able to operate," Williams said, "and I think that's what the whole point is in your question in terms of the changing landscape is you have to evolve, you have to be fluid, and you have to be able to pivot — and I think that we have the right leadership here to that, the right coaches, and the student athletes to be able to move the needle at UIC."
It seems that they have the right athletic director for that mission as well.
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