Northern Illinois University Athletics

Courtney Vinson, a former student-athlete with more than 15 years' experience as a Division I athletics administrator, joined the Northern Illinois University athletics administrative team as senior associate athletic director for sports administration on May 21, 2018. 
 
Vinson arrived at NIU after almost three years at the University of Memphis, where she was the associate athletic director for sports services and senior woman administrator. At NIU, she is the sport administrator for the Huskie men's basketball, women's soccer and wrestling teams, serves as the department's primary liaison to NIU's campus partners, and directs the Athletics Compliance Office. In addition, she represents NIU as the Huskies' Diversity and Inclusion officer to the NCAA and chairs NIU Athletics' Diversity Integration Group (D.I.G.). 
 
At Memphis, Vinson was a member of the athletics executive and senior staff and oversaw student-athlete welfare issues along with the Athletics Compliance Office.  She helped to develop and implement athletic department and compliance policies and procedures and was the sport administrator for multiple programs, including women's soccer and softball. She served as a liaison for academic advising and 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).

During the 2019-20 year, Vinson participated in and completed the NCAA Pathways Program, which is designed to elevate senior-level athletics administrators as they take the next steps in their careers in athletics administration. The year-long program provides an experiential learning opportunity for selected participants.