Donna A Lopiano Author

Donna A. Lopiano, PhD, is president of Sports Management Resources, a consulting firm that draws on the knowledge of experienced former athletic directors to assist scholastic and collegiate athletic departments in solving challenges in growth and development. She served for 18 years as the director of women’s athletics at the University of Texas at Austin and is a past president of the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women. During her tenure at Texas, she built what many believe to be the premier women’s athletic program in the country, twice earning the award for top program in the nation.

Lopiano was the chief executive officer of the Women’s Sports Foundation from 1992 to 2007 and was named one of the 10 most powerful women in sports by Fox Sports. The Institute for International Sport also named Lopiano among the 100 most influential sport educators in America. She has been recognized for her leadership as an athletic administrator and for advocating for gender equity in sports by the International Olympic Committee, National Collegiate Athletic Association, National Association for Girls and Women in Sport, National Association of Collegiate Women Athletics Administrators, and National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics.

She has been a coach of collegiate men’s and women’s volleyball and women’s basketball and softball and has coached the Italian national women’s softball team. As an athlete, she participated in 26 national championships in four sports and was a nine-time All-American in four positions in softball, a sport in which she played on six national championship teams. She is a member of the National Sports Hall of Fame, National Softball Hall of Fame, and Connecticut and Texas Women’s Halls of Fame, among others. Lopiano resides in Easton, Connecticut.

Connee Zotos, PhD, is a clinical associate professor of sports management in the Tisch Center for Hospitality, Tourism, and Sports Management at New York University in New York City. She is also a senior associate for the consulting firm Sports Management Resources.

Zotos has over 38 years of experience in scholastic and collegiate athletics as a basketball and field hockey coach, Division II and Division III athletic administrator, and professor. Zotos served as the director of athletics at Drew University in Madison, New Jersey; director of athletics, recreation, and wellness at William Smith College in Geneva, New York; and director of women's athletics at Philadelphia College of Textiles and Science in Pennsylvania. She has published numerous articles in refereed and nonrefereed journals and is a noted speaker and author on tiered funding models in collegiate athletics, coaches’ employment and compensation packages, coach evaluation systems, and gender equity in sport.

Zotos has served on the NCAA Division III Management Council and is a past president of the Collegiate Athletic Administrators of New Jersey. She was also a member of the board of directors for the National Association of Collegiate Women Athletics Administrators and the Honda Collegiate Women Sports Award.

In 2004 she received the award for Division III Administrator of the Year from the National Association of Collegiate Women Athletics Administrators. For her contributions to the development of collegiate athletics, Zotos received the 2011 Garden State Award frrom the Collegiate Athletic Administrators of New Jersey. She also received a Teaching Excellence Award from the School of Continuing and Professional Studies of New York University in 2011. Zotos resides in Clifton, New Jersey.