By Dylan Fearon
After 10 years as the Director of Athletics at Duquesne University, Greg Amodio is heading to Hamden. Quinnipiac President John Lahey held a press conference Wednesday morning to announce the newest member of the Quinnipiac administration.
“This morning I am delighted to say, with equal amount of confidence I think, for announcing today Greg Amodio as our new Director of Athletics and I am absolutely confident that he is going to be the perfect athletic director for the next 20 years or for many years to come,” Lahey said.
Amodio, who was at both Xavier University’s and Duquesne’s front office for a decade each, has three things on his mind for Quinnipiac. Win, build, and move up.
“There is a clear institutional commitment to achieve at a high level at Quinnipiac, whether it be athletically or academically,” Amodio told Q30 Sports’ Morey Hershgordon. “In my conversations with Dr. Lahey and the university’s administration, they want to win championships and for an athletic director that’s what it’s all about. So at the end of the day, that was the most exciting part about it. Great academic institution, great footprint in the market and a chance to even take it whole different level.”
Amodio takes over for Jack McDonald, who was the Director of Athletics at Quinnipiac for 20 years and announced his retirement back in October, but then took a job at the University of New England in May. McDonald says Amodio is the right fit for Quinnipiac and its community.
“It’s great,” McDonald said. “This is another great chapter in Quinnipiac and Quinnipiac athletics. To have to think that Quinnipiac has an athletic director who was a sitting AD in the A-10 in many years at Xavier is great. I’ve known Greg in association with AD’s, so I’m thrilled that he’s been offered and accepted and my coaches will love him.”
Amodio worked at Xavier as an associate athletic director after being promoted twice. In 2005, he became head athletic director at Duquesne. Both schools were in the Atlantic-10 conference during his tenure, a goal Amodio says Quinnipiac can reach, once it starts winning more championships in its current league, the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference.
“I think as we win championships across the board, and I believe that is plan as we continue to upgrade our facilities, people will take notice,” Amodio said. “And when people take notice when you’re winning championships, then additional opportunities will open themselves for us. So clearly moving from the NEC to the MAAC has been one move, and there are always possibilities to move in a different direction but we’ve got to go ahead and make sure we put results on the board.”
McDonald agrees with the 53-year old, who will officially start working at Quinnipiac on July 20.
“For the moment, I think we should do everything we can to be the best team and university in the MAAC,” McDonald said.
One sport at Quinnipiac that has yet to be the best team in the MAAC is the men’s basketball program. In its second year in the conference, Tom Moore’s squad finished sixth in the regular season standings, and was upset in the first round of the MAAC Tournament. To Amodio, it’s about getting better recruits to come to Hamden.
“At the end of the day, it’s all about getting the right student-athletes to be a part of our men’s basketball program,” Amodio said. So I’ll be working with Tom [Moore] to figure out what do we need to put in place to make sure we are able to recruit the best and brightest men’s basketball student-athletes to come to Quinnipiac.
While at Xavier and Duquesne, Amodio was an integral part in increasing attendance and alumni participation. He is also known for building and adding to facilities, something that is very important to both Amodio and McDonald.
“We have the best basketball-hockey building in most of all of intercollegiate athletics,” McDonald said. “But we don’t have a track and we have 17 sports that really need to have facilities equal to this and I think that’s where Greg will make a tremendous impact. If you look at his record, he’s had some good experience with building facilities.”
Amodio added, “I know we do a great job with hockey. The place gets rocking and it’s out of control, but we need that atmosphere for all of our programs.”
