Oklahoma Sooners

Joe Castiglione VP for Inter. Ath. Programs Director of Athletics Maryland, '79     OU Athletics Administration

Each of those characteristics, standing alone, describes the 11th director of athletics in University of Oklahoma history. However, just as he has brought together different groups who are committed to one goal, you must combine those traits to get the complete picture of the person who has led the OU athletics department since 1998.

Joe Castiglione has established a pattern of excellence that few in his profession can match. In an environment where every decision is made reflecting the department's mission statement "Inspiring champions today ... Preparing leaders for tomorrow," forming the background, Castiglione is leading the department that has written one of the most successful eras in school history.
 
Quick to give credit to the student-athletes and coaches, the staff and the university administration, the donors and the fans, Castiglione was the one who implemented the changes that led to success. When he was hired in 1998, the search committee believed they had found a rising star in the field of intercollegiate athletics administration. Everything that has happened since his arrival at OU has cemented that reputation.

The accomplishments of the department and its student-athletes, coaches and staff have earned national recognition for the university and the department. Recognized as the 2007 PRISM Award winner by the School of Sports Management at the University of Massachusetts, OU was just the second Division I winner and all of the programs recognized by the selection panel were started under Castiglione's leadership. The PRISM Award annually recognizes one Division I intercollegiate athletics department that demonstrates industry-leading excellence and innovation in sports management.

His peers have honored him for the department's achievements as well. In October 2004, the Bobby Dodd Foundation named him Athletics Director of the Year. In 2003, he was inducted into the National Association of Collegiate Marketing Administrators Hall of Fame. In June 2001, he received the General Robert R. Neyland Athletic Director Award for lifetime achievement from the All-American Football Foundation. The National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA) named him Central Region AD of the Year in 2000.
 
Perhaps his most unique achievement over the last nine years for Castiglione, though, came when he received his master's of education degree from OU in May 2007. To understand the need for education and lifelong learning, OU's student-athletes just have to look at their AD who started and completed his master's degree while running the department and maintaining his priorities to his family.

Castiglione has celebrated six national team championships and numerous conference team titles; record numbers of graduating student-athletes and record-setting grade point averages for Sooner teams; dramatically increased donor giving; huge increases in ticket sales for all sports; major facility improvements, and development and construction of new facilities. And, as aggressive as the push to improve, expand and excel has been, he has produced a balanced budget in every year of his tenure, a first since the early 1980s.
 
Other highlights of Castiglione's tenure include:

• An consistent finish among the top 25 in the standings for the Director's Cup which measures overall athletics success in seven of the last eight years, including an all-time program best of 15th in 2003-2004.

• A total of 25 OU teams that have ranked among the top 10 in season-ending polls.

• A school-record and Big 12-best graduation rate of 74% in 2003.

• Three appearances in the BCS National Championship Game and the college football national championship in 2000.

• Appearances by the men's and women's basketball teams in their respective Final Fours in 2002.

• A Division I record of 74 combined victories produced by the football team and both basketball squads in the 2001-02 school year.

• An average of more than 17 out of 20 OU teams per year represented in postseason play.

Castiglione has cultivated numerous million dollar gifts, including the largest capital gifts in history for athletics at OU, and some of the largest ever for the university as a whole. He has driven dramatic facilities projects, including a $70 million project at Gaylord Family-Oklahoma Memorial Stadium. Others include a $17.2 million renovation of Lloyd Noble Center; phase I of The Headington Family Tennis Complex; John Jacobs Field; the Everest Training Facility, one of the largest indoor practice areas in the country; and Phase II of the soccer-tennis complex.
 
Other projects completed in his tenure have included the redesign of the Sooner football practice fields; the Port Robertson Wrestling Facility; phase I of the Sooner Soccer Complex and John Crain Field as well as additional renovations to the McCasland Field House; L. Dale Mitchell Park, the Charlie Coe Golf Learning Center, the OU Softball Complex and Barry Switzer Center. His administrative work, which has seen significant reorganization and the hiring of nine head coaches, also included the negotiation of multi-million dollar multi-media rights contract that produces more than $5 million in annual revenue for the athletics department.

Castiglione was hired on April 30, 1998, after serving as athletics director at Missouri. In his 17-year career with the Tigers, Castiglione, who was named director of athletics at Missouri on Dec. 15, 1993, was credited with rebuilding sports programs, hiring outstanding coaches, implementing an innovative master plan for facilities, inspiring record-setting increases in fund-raising and balancing the budget in each of his five years as athletics director.

A 1979 Maryland graduate, Castiglione received the University's Distinguished Alumnus Award in April 2007. He began his career as the sports promotions director at Rice. He then worked a year as director of athletic fund-raising at Georgetown before being hired in 1981 at Missouri as director of communications and marketing.

Active on the national and conference level, he is currently serving on the Board of Directors for the Collegiate Women Sports Awards, the Gatorade Collegiate Advisory Board, and the National Football Foundation and College Football Hall of Fame. He has been named to the executive committee of the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame. He served two terms as chair of the Big 12 Board of Athletics Directors and is a past president of the Division I-A Athletic Directors Association and NACDA.
 
He served a four-year term on the NCAA Championship/Competition Cabinet and the NCAA Baseball Committee and is a past member of the NCAA Football Special Events Certification Committee. He recently agreed to serve on the NCAA Diversity Leadership Strategic Planning Committee and the NCAA Division I Women's Basketball Discussion Group. In 2007, he was named to the Phi Delta Theta Foundation Board of Trustees.

A native of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Castiglione is married to the former Kristen Bartel, a graduate of the University of Missouri. They are the parents of two sons, Joseph Robert, Jr., and Jonathan Edmund.