Troy Dannen

Ben Weiner Director of Athletics Chair

Phone: 504-865-5569

Troy Dannen was formally introduced as Tulane’s 33rd Director of Athletics on December 4, 2015.

In his short time in the Crescent City, Dannen has reinvigorated the Green Wave program with the hiring of five head coaches (football, men’s basketball, baseball, volleyball and women’s tennis) in addition to revamping the structure of the department’s senior management team and announcing sailing as the school’s 17th varsity sport. 
 
Dannen came to Tulane after serving eight seasons in the same capacity at his alma mater, the University of Northern Iowa (UNI) from 2008-15. He brings 27 years of athletic administration, including the last 13 years as a chief executive officer, to Tulane Athletics.  

During Dannen’s tenure at UNI, the Panthers enjoyed an incredible run of success at both the conference and national level. The successes extend beyond the competitive and include unprecedented academic, fund-raising, business operations and marketing achievement.  As a result, Dannen was honored by the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA) as Under Armour AD-of- the-Year (ADOY) in 2014.
 
UNI successfully generated gift commitments totaling $27 million in the recently completed “Imagine the Impact” institutional fund-raising campaign – which exceeded the institutional target of $15 million by 80 percent. UNI also saw its commitments to athletic scholarship endowments increase by 300 percent since 2008.
 
He negotiated multi-year marketing deals with Learfield Sports (multi-media rights), Learfield-IMG Ticket Solutions (tickets) and Nike (apparel and equipment).
 
As a by-product of these areas off the field successes, UNI athletics thrived on the playing field. UNI recognized 39 All-Americans, 13 Coaches of the Year and nine Missouri Valley Conference (MVC) Players of the Year. Football, men’s basketball, women’s basketball, volleyball and softball combined to reach 14 NCAA Tournaments since 2008. Under head coach Doug Schwab, who Dannen hired in 2010, the Panther wrestling program rose to national prominence with the only perfect NCAA Division I record (13-0) in 2013-14.
 
Born and raised on a farm near Marshalltown, Iowa, Dannen received his bachelor’s degree in communications from UNI in 1989.
 
He is married to his wife, Amy, who works for Astra-Zenica Pharmaceuticals, and has three daughters: Elle, Emily and Holly and a son: William.