Sandy Barbour Position: Director of Athletics Experience: 8th Year at Cal Alma Mater: Wake Forest

As Director of Athletics at the University of California, Sandy Barbour oversees an athletic department that ranks as one of the most successful in the country with a mission that seeks to match its level of excellence with that attained by the entire University.

Built upon four pillars - to teach, to serve, to compete and to excel - Cal Athletics strives to combine high athletic achievement with the academic rigors of the No. 1 public university in the country, and to do so with integrity, passion, respect, teamwork, innovation, diversity and professionalism. The department is charged not only to be a campus and community leader, but also to be a place where individuals can grow to their utmost potential.

Under Barbour's leadership, the Golden Bears have developed into a model program that has excelled in academics and increased its revenues in tickets, sponsorship and fundraising while becoming a mainstay among the top 10 in the annual Directors' Cup standings. Cal placed in that elite group for the sixth straight year with its all-time best third-place finish in 2010-11, an historic year with Cup points earned by the national champion men's and women's swimming & diving teams, national runners-up finishes from volleyball and men's and women's water polo, College World Series trips by baseball (T5th) and softball (T5th), and top-five finishes by women's crew (3rd), men's gymnastics (4th) and men's soccer (T5th). Even without rugby's national championship and men's crew's third-place finish, neither of which count toward final Directors' Cup standings, 20 programs contributed to Cal's total.

"Sandy Barbour was my first appointment at Berkeley, and I consider it a privilege to have her as our athletic director," Chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau said. "Under her leadership, our student-athletes are excelling on and off the field, supported by a department committed to excellence, equity and comprehensive compliance with the rules."

Since Barbour began her tenure in Berkeley on Sept. 15, 2004, Cal programs have captured 15 national team championships and 67 individual titles.

In 2009-10, the men's basketball team earned its first Pac-10 conference title in 50 seasons, while the women's basketball program won the Women's National Invitational Tournament.

In addition, the Golden Bear football team appeared in seven straight bowl games from 2003-09, with a four-game bowl win streak from 2005-08 and a share of the Pac-10 championship for the first time in 21 seasons in 2006.

Overall, Cal supports a 29-sport program with more than 800 student-athletes and a budget of approximately $70 million.

On the academic front, more than half of Cal's 29 programs maintain a cumulative GPA of 3.0 or higher, with 18 of them earning cumulative GPAs higher than their historical average last year. Nine teams scored perfect Academic Progress Rates for the 2008-09 academic year and eight teams received national recognition for their Academic Progress Rates over the last two years. More than 175 student-athletes have earned academic all-conference recognition in each of the last seven years and over 70 percent of head football coach Jeff Tedford's first recruiting class has graduated.

Amid these achievements, Barbour has led the department's efforts to raise funds, design and begin construction on the long-awaited renovation and retrofit of California Memorial Stadium as well as the Student-Athlete High Performance Center, scheduled to open in September of 2011.

One of the "100 Most Influential Women in Business" in the Bay Area according to the San Francisco Business Times, Barbour was named a regional Athletic Director of the Year for 2008-09 by the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA), and she was a finalist for National AD of the Year at the Sports Business Awards. Barbour was previously chosen a 2006 Woman of Distinction by the East Bay Business Times and the 2006 National Association of Collegiate Women Athletics Administrators (NACWAA) Division I-A National Administrator of the Year.

Barbour is an active member of several committees on both the national and conference levels. In July 2010 she was selected as the Pac-10 representative to the NCAA Division I Leadership Council, a four-year appointment. She chairs the Pac-10 Revenue Sharing Committee and serves on the conference's Compliance & Enforcement and Diversity Leadership Initiatives. Barbour is also on the NACDA Executive Committee, the NCAA Diversity Leadership Strategic Planning Committee, the NCAA Women's Basketball Discussion Group and the WBCA Defensive Player of the Year Selection Committee.

In the past, Barbour has also served as the chair of the Pac-10 Budget and Finance Committee, been a member of the Pac-10 Executive Committee and the Pac-10 Television Committee, and was vice president of the conference in 2007-08.

Prior to moving to Berkeley, Barbour was the deputy director of athletics at Notre Dame, serving as the university's senior athletic administrator from July 2002 to September 2004. She previously held an associate athletic director position there starting in 2000.

Barbour's career in intercollegiate athletic administration spans 30 years, beginning as a field hockey assistant coach and lacrosse administrative assistant at the University of Massachusetts in 1981. She has since served as assistant athletic director at Northwestern and in 1991 was recruited to Tulane as an associate athletic director.

In 1996, Barbour was appointed Tulane's director of athletics at age 36, and during her three years overseeing the program, Green Wave teams won 12 conference championships. In her first year in the position, the school captured four conference titles, a feat never before accomplished in Tulane history. She also hired Tommy Bowden as head football coach during her first year. Bowden proceeded in 1997 to post the Green Wave's first winning season (7-4) in 16 years, and then directed the school to a 12-0 record, a Conference USA championship and a No. 7 national ranking the following season as the 1998 Liberty Bowl champions.

In her position at Notre Dame, Barbour oversaw facilities and event operations for the school's 26-sport program, including football game management and the department's two golf courses. She was also responsible for developing, maintaining and implementing Notre Dame's $127 million athletics facilities master plan.

Additionally, her role at Notre Dame included responsibilities for women's lacrosse, men's and women's cross country, indoor and outdoor track, men's and women's swimming and men's golf. She also assisted with the administration of women's basketball.

Born Dec. 2, 1959, in Annapolis, Md., Barbour grew up in a military family. Her father was a career aviator in the U.S. Navy, and her family lived in various U.S. locations as well as in Western Europe during her childhood.

Barbour graduated cum laude in 1981 with a B.S. degree in physical education from Wake Forest, where she was a four-year letterwinner and served as captain of the field hockey team. She also played two varsity seasons of women's basketball.

Barbour earned advanced degrees at both Massachusetts (an M.S. in sports management in 1983) and Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management (an MBA in 1991).

Between master's programs, Barbour served as assistant field hockey and lacrosse coach at Northwestern from 1982-84. She also held the position of director of recruiting services during that period, before being promoted to assistant athletic director for intercollegiate programs in 1984, a position she held until 1989.

Prior to joining Tulane, Barbour worked in programming and production for FOX Sports Net in Chicago during the summer of 1990.