Eric Zillmer

Now in his 11th year as Director of Athletics, Dr. Eric A. Zillmer oversees all components of the Athletics Department, including varsity teams, fiscal management, NCAA compliance, academic support services, NCAA Life Skills program, facility and athletic event operations, community outreach, sports medicine, strength and conditioning, sports information, external relations, personnel, recreation, athletic equipment services, intramural and club sports, marketing, alumni relations, collegiate licensing, corporate sales, spirit groups, promotions, and fund-raising ventures. As a member of the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA), Drexel University competes at the NCAA Division I level in 16 varsity sports. The department provides recreational opportunities and programming to 23,000 full-time students and 6,000 faculty and staff.

"Drexel is a premier academic institution that deserves an equally prominent athletic program," says Dr. Zillmer who serves as President of the CAA in 2008 and 2009. In 2001 Dr. Zillmer facilitated the transition from America East to the CAA, bringing all of Drexel's 16 Division I teams under the CAA umbrella, and overseeing the hiring of James "Bruiser" Flint and his staff. During his tenure as Director of Athletics, Dr. Zillmer has also been instrumental in the implementation of the Walter Spiro Varsity Weight Room, the Blue Cross Wellness Center, the remodeling of the department's Sport Medicine facility, extensive renovations that are being constructed at the Vidas Athletic Complex, and securing the winning bid for the 2008 Olympic Trials in Table Tennis. In March of 2002 Drexel Athletics was named #1 in the nation in Gender Equity by U.S. News and World Report and the Pennsylvania Law Project listed Drexel as one of the top athletic programs in terms of Title IX. Dr. Zillmer is currently a member of the CAA Board of Directors, a member of the Executive Committee of the Philadelphia Sports Congress, and the chair of the CAA student-athlete issues committee.

Dr. Zillmer has created the course Sports Psychology at Drexel University and helped facilitate the Principles of Coaching Certificate as well as a new major in sport management. A former student-athlete himself, Dr. Zillmer spent his formative years in Germany, where he skied competitively and played tennis and basketball. Dr. Zillmer comes from a sports-oriented family; his father played baseball for Army '44, and his mother coached his sister on the Olympic team in figure skating (Grenoble, France 1968).