Athletic Director 2013

• Served five years as Associate Vice President and Director of Athletics at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Ill. Stressed success in the classroom and on the playing field. NIU has 22,000 students and is a member of the Mid-American Conference for athletics.
   
  
• Under Compher’s leadership, NIU Huskie student-athletes have excelled academically. In the last seven years, all 17 intercollegiate athletic team have surpassed the NCAA’s Academic Progress Rate every year. The NIU football team has been ranked in the Top 12 in the country in APR in each of the last four years.
  
  
• In the past three years NIU has had seven Academic All-Americans, two National Football Foundation Scholar-Athletes, an NCAA Woman of the Year finalist and an NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship winner.
  
  
• The Huskie football team won its second straight Mid-American Conference title and became the first MAC team to play in the Bowl Championship Series with its Discover Orange Bowl matchup against Florida State on Jan. 1, 2013.

 
Background:

• Worked at N.C. State University for 13 years in varied athletic roles, including assistant athletic director from 1986 to 1992.
  
  
• Directed athletics administration at Vanderbilt University from 1996 to 2000.
  
  
• Led Western Carolina University’s athletics programs from 2000 to 2004.
  
  
• Served as executive associate athletic director at the University of Washington in Seattle from 2004-2008.

 
Hometown: Baltimore, Md.
 
Education:  Bachelor’s degree in psychology from James Madison University in 1980, where he was a football student-athlete; Master’s degree in counseling and student personnel services from Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania in 1982.
 
Family: He and his wife, Cathy, have two sons, C.J., 20, and David, 17.