Indiana Tech athletic director Debbie Warren is retiring at the end of the school year, the school has announced.
Warren, who has been at the Warriors' helm since the summer of 2015, has set June 5, 2020, as her last day.
“It has been my absolute delight to be the Athletics Director at Indiana Tech,” Warren says in a statement from the university. “It is a wonderful institution and I have been so fortunate to work with so many talented and caring professionals who are fantastic people.”
Warren's career in athletic administration spans more than 40 years. Prior to coming to Indiana Tech, she served as athletic diretor at Marymount University (2010-2015), Hartwick College (2005-10) and Chowan University (2002-05). From 1985-2001, she worked at the University of Alabama, rising to senior associate athletic director. Her coaching and administration started at the University of Mount Union in 1980.
Under Warren's watch, Indiana Tech has grown leaps and bounds. The Warriors have won NAIA national championships in men's ice hockey, men's indoor track & field, men's outdoor track & field, women's indoor track and field and women's outdoor track & field. Another 19 student-athletes have claimed individual national championships and 288 earned All-America honors. Tech's entire athletic program has finished in the Top 10 of the Learfield IMG College Directors' Cup each of the last 5 years.
In that same timeframe, Tech built Warrior Park--a $15 million athletic complex for softball, outdoor track & field, wrestling, Parkview Sports Medicine athletic training services and administrative offices--on the south grounds of Fort Wayne's Donald Ross Golf Course. Additionally, Warren spearheaded efforts to bring back men's volleyball in the winter of 2020 and start a women's wrestling program that will take the mats starting in the 2020-21 school year and reinstating the Indiana Tech Athletics Hall of Fame in 2018. Warren has also stressed academic achievement, creating a Student-Athlete Awards program in 2017 to celebrate scholastic accomplishments for more than 900 Warrior student-athletes.
“Debbie Warren is one of the best university administrators I've ever worked with,” Indiana Tech president Karl W. Einolf added in the statement. “She cares deeply about the success of students, both in the classroom and on the field of play."
Her committment to Indiana Tech extended beyond athletics, too. She served as the director of the Indiana Tech Warrior pep band and has been a member of several campus committees, as well.
Warren, a native of Westerville, Ohio, says she is looking forward to spending more time with her family in retirement. A search for the next Indiana Tech athletic director will start this spring, the school says.
Indiana Tech is one of five universities that partners with Parkview Sports Medicine for athletic training, sports performance training, nutrition, athletic rehabilitation and other sports medicine services for Warrior student-athletes. Learn more at www.parkviewsportsmedicine.com.