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Director of Athletics
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Principle Centered Leader ...Visionary ... Passionate
Advocate for Student-Athletes ... Establishes Standards
of Excellence & Cultural Values ... Builder of
Championship Programs
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.
Credited with energizing OU's fund-raising efforts,
Castiglione was instrumental in the athletics department's
major campaign, Great Expectations: The Campaign For
Sooner Sports. The campaign ended in November of 2003
with more than $125 million raised or pledged. Unique
in its approach, the largest fund-raising effort in
OU athletics history included projects that impact
each of OU's nearly 500 student-athletes and has become
a national model for intercollegiate athletics.
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 was
born Oct. 8, 1957. He is married to the former Kristen
Bartel, a 1990 graduate of the University of Missouri.
They are the parents of two sons, Joseph Robert, Jr.,
born on December 20, 1996, and Jonathan Edmund, born
on March 21, 2000.
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