Lincoln South Rotary Club and the Lincoln Center Kiwanis Club held a joint meeting on August 30 featuring UNL Athletic Director Troy Dannen. The meeting was held at the Epic Church.
Troy announced that he is a Paul Harris Fellow - to the delight of the Rotarians at the meeting.
Nebraska \should set the standard for what everyone else should do. He wants everyone follow what Nebraska does - everyone else should be following what we are doing.
We are chasing the same trophies that we already have - we should be chasing the ones we don't have yet. He has five rules for the department:
1. When people are down you lift them up
2. When people are up you lift them up higher
Part of his attraction was to be a part of an organization where people care. We have to support our own. It is hard what they do - academic challenges, social accountability, scoreboard in front of the world.
3. We're going to control the controllable.
We will do everything that we can to prepare our people - nutrition, physical development. Don't worry about things that we don't have control over.
4. Respect everyone.
The cool thing about the locker room - it does not matter skin color, what your background is, all respect and care for one another. But that needs to expand beyond the locker room. Team members are asked to respect everyone that helps them.
5. Have fun.
Troy takes the job seriously, but does not take himself too seriously. Enjoy this four years while you can.
The athletes in Nebraska represent all of us. They don't just represent themselves and department. Not just their families. It does not happen anywhere else in the Country. Always walk away proud about how our athletes represent us.
He spoke highly of Matt Rhule - his knowledge and recruiting abilities - a tremendous asset as a man but also as a coach. He believes the cornerstones of success for the program are facilities, fans, coaches and recruits.
He answered questions about the upgrades to the football stadium. He stated that we will not be successful if we are not financially sound. The greatest asset that we have is our past financial management and financial plan. He pledged not to mess that up. How can we generate more revenue without pricing people out of the general tickets and concessions?
His family is happy to be in the Midwest - his family is from Iowa - they have Labor Day plans in Iowa. He grew up near Marshalltown, Iowa and spent much time at the University of Northern Iowa.
Channel 10/11 was on hand at the event and shared on their news cast - click here.
For the recording of the meeting - click here.
BIO
Troy Dannen, a leading voice in collegiate athletics with extensive experience as an athletic director and deep ties to the Midwest, is in his first year as Nebraska’s Director of Athletics. Dannen was hired on March 20, 2024, and has hit the ground running in Lincoln.
Nebraska Athletics enjoyed success during Dannen’s first championship season, as the Husker baseball program won its first Big Ten Tournament title and reached the 40-win plateau for the first time since 2014 while the Husker track teams put together impressive showings. The Husker men won the Big Ten Outdoor title and earned their best NCAA Championship finish since 2016 with a 13th-place finish, while the Husker women posted their second straight top-10 NCAA finish and placed ninth at the national meet. Nebraska finished 22nd in the final 2023-24 Learfield Director’s Cup, the program’s highest finish since 2010.
Dannen has been a leader in charting the course for a new era of collegiate athletics, serving from 2021 to 2023 as a member of the NCAA Constitution Committee and the Division I Transformation Committee. Dannen also previously served as the chair of the NCAA Football Competition Committee and was an Executive Committee member of the Football Oversight Committee. In total, Dannen has served on seven NCAA committees. \
In 2022, Dannen was a finalist for Sports Business Journal’s Athletic Director of the Year award, and he received the Distinguished American Award from the Sugar Bowl Chapter of the National Football Foundation.
Dannen came to Lincoln after serving as Director of Athletics at the University of Washington. He helped guide the Huskies’ transition to the Big Ten Conference and oversaw a football program that reached the College Football Playoff National Championship Game in January of 2024.
He arrived at Washington in the fall of 2023 after serving as Director of Athletics at Tulane University since 2015. While at Tulane, Green Wave student-athletes earned 49 All-America honors, a national championship, 21 conference championships and 41 postseason appearances.
In 2022-23, Tulane football won its first American Athletic Conference football championship and won the Cotton Bowl over USC, which was ranked ninth in the nation at that time. The men’s basketball program won 20 regular-season games for the first time in two decades. Additionally, men’s tennis advanced to its sixth NCAA Tournament in seven years, both bowling and beach volleyball finished ranked in the top 20, and baseball won the conference championship.
Tulane’s football program participated in an unprecedented three consecutive bowl games from 2018 to 2020, winning back-to-back bowl games for the first time in 128 years of football at the University.
In the classroom, Tulane student-athletes excelled at a high-level. At the end of the 2022-23 academic year, over 68 percent of Green Wave student-athletes earned a 3.0 GPA or better, with a 93 percent Graduation Success Rate and a record-setting department Academic Progress Report of 992, with seven teams earning a perfect 1000 APR score.
Dannen spearheaded fundraising efforts and numerous capital projects at Tulane. He helped secure the largest unrestricted gift in Tulane Athletics history, an endowment gift that funded the operation of a new sport (sailing), and a $10 million lead gift for capital renovations, which was the second-largest gift in department history. In addition, marketing and licensing revenue grew four-fold, and in 2022-23, Tulane football, basketball and volleyball set ticket sales and revenue records. Under Dannen’s leadership, the Green Wave Club Annual Fund grew by 40 percent in terms of donors, and 45 percent in terms of dollars.
Increases in fundraising and major gift donors positively impacted capital project development and completion. A $13 million renovation to the Reilly Natatorium, home of the swimming and diving program, as well as $8 million in renovations to locker rooms and the sports medicine area inside the Wilson Center were completed in 2023. Dannen also oversaw construction of a new dining facility, weight room, basketball and volleyball locker rooms. Tulane also completed a $2.4 million academic center renovation and a $5 million television and digital production center.
Dannen came to Tulane after serving eight years as the Director of Athletics at the University of Northern Iowa (UNI) from 2008 to 2015. During his tenure, the Panthers enjoyed success at both the conference and national levels, highlighted by an NCAA Sweet 16 appearance in 2010 by the UNI men’s basketball team. During his eight-year tenure, UNI was recognized with 39 All-Americans, 13 Coaches of the Year and nine Missouri Valley Conference (MVC) Players of the Year. UNI football, men’s basketball, women’s basketball, volleyball and softball combined to reach 15 NCAA tournaments and 20 postseason berths during that stretch. For his efforts, Dannen was recognized as NACDA’s FCS Athletic Director of the Year in 2014.
Prior to his time at UNI, Dannen served as the Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union’s Executive Director for seven years, overseeing 400 high schools and 10 sports.
Dannen grew up on a farm just outside Marshalltown, Iowa, and graduated from UNI in 1989 with a degree in communications. He is married to Amy, and has four children: Elle, Emily, Holly and William.
