Legacy of DU’S AD: A-OK department
Peg Bradley-doppes was a high school sophomore mowing the front lawn of her Cincinnati childhood home when one opportunity opened the first of many doors that led her to this moment, leading the most successful Division I athletic department in Colorado.
A vehicle pulled up to her driveway. The director of the local YMCA chapter hopped out. He wanted to know if she would like to join the traveling softball and volleyball teams he coached as their youngest player. Are you ready for this?
It’s been a recurring question Bradley-doppes has faced over and over again throughout her career: When she joined those traveling squads as a teenager and earned an athletic scholarship at College of Mount St. Joseph; when she was hired as the head volleyball and softball coach at Miami (Ohio) at just 21 years old; and, later as an adation ministrator at Michigan, when she helped bridge men’s and women’s sports into one unified department.
So don’t act surprised when her next move accompanies a similar tune.
Bradley-doppes shakes her head and smiles when she says it. “I’m not ready to retire.” And yet, she added, “I’ve always known when to leave a party.”
Bradley-doppes, 60, announced last fall that she will step down as the University of Denver’s vice chancellor and director for athletics and recre- after June 30, 2018, a position she has held for 13 years. Over the course of more than a decade (2005-17), DU has featured the highest success rate among Division I athletic departments in Colorado. Under Bradley-doppes’ leadership, the Pioneers have won seven NCAA championships, nine NCAA I-AAA Directors’ Cups, 97 conference championships and 69 coach of the year honors. DU’S most recent graduation success rate came in at 93 percent, tops in the Summit League and highest among major-college athletic departments in Colorado.
Bradley-doppes will be the first to claim that those accolades are a total departmental achievement, but dating back to her first months on the job, her influence has forever altered the course of DU athletics.
Bradley-doppes was hired in the midst of the Pioneers’ transition to Division I, with not every DU team fully funded with the maximum scholarship allowance. The transition was
made even more difficult with the lack of football revenue. But finances were just one hurdle. Jeff Hooker has coached women’s soccer at DU since 1992 and recalled Bradley-doppes’ initial impact.
“She asked a lot of questions, like, ‘Why are these people in these offices? Why are we disjointed here?’ She wanted to create a better working environment,” Hooker said. “There were people who were isolated. They weren’t next to where their support system was. She stepped back, made some changes early, stuck by them and everything worked.”
The open-door policy Bradley-doppes instituted then remains today with visitors popping in and out of her office throughout the day. Staffers also wear identification badges with first names only and no job titles. At the year-end banquet, one member of the department is awarded the “Unsung Hero” honor as the person who contributes the most with the least amount of recognition.
“She’s very good at the 10,000-foot view of where we need to go, what down the road we need to be working on and what we can put in place that’s going to make us better,” said Ron Grahame, a longtime DU athletics administrator who now oversees day-to-day operations of the department. “Peg came in with a work ethic that was second to none.”
When men’s lacrosse coach Jamie Munro resigned after a losing season in 2009, Bradley-doppes tapped former Princeton coach Bill Tierney to fill the vacancy, and the Pioneers were NCAA champions in that sport by 2015.
“My first day on the job, she brought me in and said to me, ‘I don’t care If you don’t win a game in two years, just get this program straightened out,’ ” Tierney said. “That allowed me to do things my way knowing I would have her support if I needed it. That was a huge weight off my shoulders.”
Developing a culture of excellence has required more than just a positive attitude. Bradley-doppes has encountered difficult negotiations throughout her 25 years as an administrator. Among the more challenging scenarios played out in her stop previous to DU, a six-year stint as the athletic director at North Carolinawilmington, when an order from a senior official didn’t sit well with Bradleydoppes’ personal code of ethics.
“I was asked to fire someone and I couldn’t do it, because they did nothing wrong,” she said. “When you have to change someone’s life, there should be a due process.”
What ultimately drew her to DU over interest from Brown and Arizona State was a shared vision with then-university chancellor Dan Ritchie, and it has been validated ever since as the athletic department’s budget and trophy case continued to grow over the next 13 years.
“Where I’ve seen some momentum with our culture is when the coaches and the kids care even more about our vision than perhaps I do,” Bradley-doppes said, “which I never thought would happen.”
Her decision to retire is not a reflection of lost passion for DU’S mission, but rather a need to better mentor another team — her family. Bradley-doppes and her husband, Gary, have a teenage son, Conor, who will begin high school next fall. For once in her life, the need to spend more family time with loved ones has superseded professional goals.
But the word “retirement” won’t define this next stage.
You never know what opportunities will present themselves while mowing the front yard.
“I’m going to exhale,” Bradley-doppes said. “Then I’m going to see what I should do next.”
Kyle Fredrickson: Kylefredrickson @denverpost.com or @kylefredrickson