SUNY Cortland Athletics

Sue Zawacki was a four-sport student-athlete during the infancy of women’s intercollegiate athletics at Cortland in the early 1970s, and has been a highly regarded administrator and coach for almost four decades since.

A 1974 Cortland graduate with a bachelor’s degree in physical education, Zawacki played basketball for four seasons, softball for three years, and was both a two-year field hockey player and golfer. As a senior, she batted .375 for Cortland’s softball squad that finished second at the New York State Championships.

The Peekskill, N.Y., native served four years on Cortland’s Women’s Athletic Association (WAA). She was the WAA secretary and publicity manager as a sophomore and on the executive council as a senior. She also participated in the Officiating Club and was a Theta Phi Alpha sorority member from 1971-74. She is an alumna of Hendrick Hudson High School and was inducted into the school’s Hall of Fame in 2012.

Zawacki taught and coached at Academy High School in Erie, Pa., from 1974-77. She earned a master’s degree from Ithaca College in 1978, and started her intercollegiate athletics career as Associate Director of Intramurals and Instructor in Physical Education at Hamilton College later that year. She coached Hamilton’s first women's basketball team in 1978 and brought the team to the state playoffs in just its second season of competition.

From 1980 to 1983, Zawacki was the Senior Woman Administrator, Director of Physical Education and Associate Professor of Physical Education at Amherst College. She directed the women's basketball and field hockey programs for 13 years. Zawacki moved to the University of Chicago in 1993 and was the Assistant Director of Athletics and Assistant Department Chairperson for seven years. At Chicago, she helped implement a successful women's basketball program that won 93 games in seven seasons, including a 19-7 mark and a first-ever NCAA tournament berth in 1995.

Zawacki began her current tenure as the senior associate director of athletics at the University of New Haven in 2000. She serves on the management team for developing departmental policy, as well as overseeing head coaches for a number of the Chargers' intercollegiate sports and the Sports Medicine Department.

Zawacki was national chairperson for the NCAA Division III Women's Basketball Committee from 1986-93 and chairperson for the Frances Pomeroy Naismith National Award Committee from 1991-93 and 1998-2000. She’s currently a member of the NCAA Division II Championships Committee.