Winthrop AD Tom Hickman stepping down in June

Winthrop athletics look vastly different now compared to 1996.

That was the year that the school’s former president, Dr. Anthony DiGiorgio, promoted Tom Hickman to head athletic director.

“Rather than doing a national search, I had come to know Tom well enough and to see the qualities that he had,” said DiGiorgio, who came to Winthrop the same year as Hickman, 1989.

DiGiorgio and Hickman partnered to drive Winthrop athletics forward over the next 20 years. DiGiorgio retired in 2013, and now Hickman has announced he will do the same in June, at the end of his 27th year at the school.

He’s the longest tenured AD in Winthrop history and the longest current serving AD in the Big South Conference.

“It is with many great memories that I have decided it is time for someone with new energy and new ideas to come in and take over the reins of Winthrop athletics,” he said in a Winthrop press release. “Making this decision at this time will allow President Dan Mahony the time he needs to identify the right person and have them in place by the start of the new academic year on July 1st.”

Formerly a women’s teaching college, Winthrop got a late start in NCAA sports. Hickman and DiGiorgio helped the school catch up.

“When we both came we had minimalist facilities at Winthrop,” said DiGiorgio. “Literally we were playing in open fields and the Coliseum wasn’t anything like it is now. We had a major task in building the facilities base of the institution.”

New facilities were added in the last two decades for baseball, softball, tennis, track and field, soccer and lacrosse, while existing baseball and basketball facilities were upgraded with digital video boards. New scoreboards were also added at the softball, tennis, track and soccer/lacrosse complexes, and head coaching positions were made full-time.

DiGiorgio praised Hickman’s integrity and called him “a steady hand,” a critical attribute in the volatile realm of college athletics. Winthrop basketball coach Pat Kelsey - given his first head coaching opportunity in 2012 by Hickman - cherished Hickman’s even keel.

“You feel like, as a head coach, there are so many roller-coasters, there’s moments when you feel like Armageddon is hitting,” he said. “You always walk out of his office like, ‘you know what? Not everything is as bad as it seems.’ He always had that unbelievable perspective and conveyed belief in what we were doing.”

That steadiness helped success follow investment at Winthrop. Eagles sports teams captured 48 Big South Championships, while 14 student-athletes have earned individual NCAA invitations. Women’s tennis and baseball have experienced great success. And from 1999 to 2010, the Eagles’ men’s basketball team made the NCAA tournament nine of 12 years under Gregg Marshall and Randy Peele. Hickman’s efforts to keep Marshall at Winthrop in 2006 and 2007 were some of the few times he was ever in the media spotlight.

“I never really wanted to be the face of the athletic department,” he said. “It should be about the players and the coaches.”

Under Hickman, Winthrop athletics never lost sight of the more important parts of student-athlete responsibilities. The women’s teams have earned a cumulative grade point average of 3.0 or above for 37 consecutive semesters dating back to 1997; men’s teams have reached or exceeded a 3.0 GPA in 17 of the last 20 semesters (since 2006).

“We were very much student-athlete-centered,” said DiGiorgio on Thursday. “We were always interested in being competitive, but from Day 1 we put the welfare of the student-athlete and their academic progress at the forefront. Tom was very much on board with that.”

Hickman’s tenure at Winthrop capped a life thus far devoted to education and athletics. The Enfield, N.C. native graduated from Wake Forest in 1972 and achieved a Masters from the school in 1974. He worked as a graduate assistant for the Demon Deacons’ men’s basketball team during those two years, doing everything from coaching the freshman team to working in the ticket office.

It was a valuable experience in learning, “What (coaches) go through, how they manage their time, the pressures they’re under,” said Hickman.

He was the AD at Ferrum College for three years before coming to Winthrop in 1989 as the associate athletic director to Steve Vacendak. In the years since Hickman has been involved with numerous Big South Conference and NCAA committees. With those obligations out of the way, he will have more time to spend with his family, his wife, Karen, two sons, Wesley and Brett, a daughter, Lauren, and two granddaughters, Aubrey and Addison.

“For the past 30-plus years, my professional life has been wrapped up in intercollegiate athletics,” Hickman said. “Even prior to that, going back to my high school and college days, every job I’ve ever had has been in the field of sport and recreation.

“These past 27 years at Winthrop have been a great place to cap off my career.”

This story was originally published January 21, 2016 at 10:30 AM with the headline "Winthrop AD Tom Hickman stepping down in June."