The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
New Haven hiring Zenger as new AD
WEST HAVEN — The University of New Haven has found its new athletic director, hiring former University of Kansas AD Sheahon Zenger.
The school will introduce Zenger at a 10 a.m. press conference Thursday. The hiring of a former Division I administrator is a sign the school is upgrading athletics, which could include a move to Division I from Division II.
He will replace former NFL coach Chris Palmer, who retired in June.
“I came to interview about two and a half weeks ago. I came for two days and stayed for seven. I fell in love with the place,” Zenger told Hearst Connecticut Media Wednesday. “I was attracted to President (Steven) Kaplan, his leadership, the trajectory of the institution — all the stuff you know about. It’s easy to get excited about.”
Zenger led the Kansas athletic department from 2011 to 2018. He was fired in May 2018, as school chancellor Douglas Girod said in a letter to school staff that “progress in key areas has been elusive.”
Since then, he has worked as a consult at TCU and has coached high school football in Kansas.
“I think you have to find a place that just fits,” Zenger said. “The people, starting with President Kaplan and his leadership team … they’re a group of individuals I want to work with. The history and the success of the athletics teams, the enrollment increase, the building, the endowment increase, all the things that have happened under President Kaplan’s watch … you want to be at a place that’s growing, not at a place that’s downsizing. That attracted me more than anything.”
Zenger, 53, plans to explore new ways to build the school’s brand, including potentially moving to Division I “if that’s the will of the board and the institution.” The school currently competes in 17 different sports and has resided in the Northeast10 Conference
since 2008.
“It’s something we’ll certainly explore, but my first task is to come in and listen and assess,” he said. “You have two ears and one mouth for a reason. I’m here to listen and to find out what the needs of the institution and the coaches and the studentathletes are and then to be the best we can be in the niche we’re in. Right now, they’ve been pretty good.”
UNH has explored a jump to Division I before. Zenger said there are also benefits in fundraising, in particular, that would make moving football to the FCS level attractive.
“What shouldn’t go overlooked is that I spent six years at Illinois State, an FCS program that I believe is the sweet spot of college athletics,” he said. “This niche that New Haven sits in and Illinois State sits in, I think you attract, for the student athletes and the coaches, enough attention without all the scrutiny in terms of maybe criticism of their play and their coaching. It allows you to be a little more in the trenches with them. What that leads to in fundraising is sharing that story with your stakeholders, your alums, your friends of the program.”
Zenger called upgrading the school’s athletic facilities an “area of emphasis.” He said the football stadium, Ralph F. DellaCamera Stadium, which seats 5,000 and features blue turf, is a “bell cow” for fans.
“I need to sit back and listen and see what the need is,” he said, regarding football upgrades. “Is it for more seats? Is it quality experience? Is it for an end zone facility for staff and student athletes and weight room — things that enhance the entire athletic endeavor?”
Zenger has coached football before, but not to the extent of his predecessor. Palmer coached 13 teams across four professional leagues and five different colleges, including UConn as an assistant in the 1970s and UNH as a head coach from 198687.
He went 164 in two seasons coaching the Chargers, before landing a job at Boston University. From there, went on to the NFL, where he won two Super Bowls as an assistant.
While Palmer made an indelible impact at UNH, no one is more synonymous with the program’s rise than Deborah Chin. She spent 42 years at UNH, building it into a Division II national power in multiple sports as both a coach and administrator after coming aboard in 1975 as the coordinator of women’s athletics.
Residing in a state defined women’s basketball, UNH made its mark by winning a Division II national title in 1987. The school also became prominent in volleyball — compiling a 578179 record over 19 years — and Chin was inducted into the American Volleyball Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 2006.
Chin — who also coached softball, women’s basketball and tennis — retired in 2017 and was replaced by Duane Bailey. However, Bailey left after not even a year.