DeKALB, Ill. – Courtney Vinson, a former student-athlete with more than 14 years' experience as a Division I athletics administrator, will join the Northern Illinois University athletics administrative team as senior associate athletic director for sports administration, NIU Associate Vice-President and Director of Athletics Sean T. Frazier announced Thursday.
 
Vinson, who comes to NIU after almost three years at the University of Memphis, where she is associate athletic director for sports services and senior woman administrator, will be the sport administrator for the Huskie men's basketball, women's soccer and wrestling teams, serve as the department's primary liaison to NIU's campus partners, and direct the Athletics Compliance Office.
 
"I'm very excited to bring Courtney Vinson on board as part of NIU's senior leadership team," Frazier said.  "She is a rising star in athletics administration with extensive experience in compliance and sports administration. The experience she has gained at Clemson, UCF and Memphis, along with her knowledge of the Mid-American Conference from her time at Akron, will be a great asset to NIU. I love that she brings the perspective of a former student-athlete as well as a highly-skilled administrator."
 
Vinson said she looks forward to joining the Huskie pack.
 
"I'm very excited to join the Huskie family," Vinson said. "The most important thing to me is to provide our student-athletes with a good experience, while making sure they are prepared for tomorrow, for their future after athletics. That is why we're all here. I look forward to working with our coaches and staff to continue to provide an amazing athletic experience for NIU student-athletes."  
 
At Memphis, Vinson is a member of the athletics executive and senior staff and oversees student-athlete welfare issues along with the Athletics Compliance Office.  She helped to develop and implement athletic department and compliance policies and procedures and is the sport administrator for multiple programs, including women's soccer and softball. She serves as a liaison for academic advising and has worked with the CHAMPS Life Skills program. 
 
In four years as assistant athletic director for compliance at UCF, she supervised all aspects of the athletics compliance office, created and updated the compliance work plan, instituted a monitoring system and developed educational compliance programming. She processed NCAA infractions cases and investigated rules violations while serving as the liaison to university offices, including academic services, financial aid, admissions and more.
 
Prior to her time at UCF, the Long Island, N.Y. native served as the director of compliance at Clemson University from 2008-11 where her responsibilities included initial eligibility, rules education and interpretations, waivers, monitoring and all day-to-day compliance activities.
 
In her first full-time position as assistant director of compliance at Akron (2006-08), she oversaw compliance operations for 11 of the Zips' 17 teams. Following her 2003 graduation from Florida A&M University in Tallahassee, where she earned a bachelor's degree in journalism while also competing as a member of the track and field team, Vinson went to Marshall University as a graduate assistant in compliance.  She earned her master's degree in athletic administration in 2006 and also completed internships at Georgia Tech (2005) and Villanova (2006).
 
Vinson replaces Jerome Rodgers, who resigned to take a position with the Atlantic Sun Conference, on Frazier's senior staff. She begins her duties at NIU on May 21.
 
-- NIU --