Amy Heasley Williams, director of athletics and physical education at The College of Wooster, has announced a strategic restructuring of the leadership team, which will enable the athletics and physical education department to become more effective and efficient in administrative operations to better serve the department, student-athletes, and the College. Ashley Reid, Wooster's associate athletic director, will assume a blended position between the dean of students' office and athletics, where she will focus on student-athlete welfare as associate athletic director and serve as interim associate dean for the class of 2022 as well as Posse mentor for the class of 2025. Head coaches Dennis Rice (elevation to assistant athletic director with oversight of NCAA compliance), Elizabeth Ford (senior woman administrator with primary responsibility for athletics diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives and Title IX coordination), and Sarah Davis (chair of physical education minor) will take on administrative responsibilities within the department in addition to their respective coaching duties.
"Diversifying these roles will allow us to be more intentional about our student education and outreach and more deliberately align inclusion work into our daily activity," shared Williams. "Dennis, Elizabeth, and Sarah have consistently embraced the strong core values that define our department, they enthusiastically and optimistically live these standards every day, and they have earned these respective appointments. I am confident that as a team, we will learn together, we will lead together, and we will be stronger together."
A staple at Wooster since 2006, Reid transitioned from the basketball sidelines into an administrative role in June 2015, serving as the College's first assistant athletic director for diversity, inclusion, compliance, and internal management. She was elevated to associate director of athletics and added additional responsibilities as senior woman administrator and chair of the physical education department in 2019, not long after being honored as an "emerging athletic administrator" by the National Association of Div. III Athletic Administrators.
For nearly 40 years, Rice has been behind the success of Wooster's cross country and track and field programs. He's entering year 33 as the head coach and spent four years as an assistant prior to that. During his tenure, Wooster's won six North Coast Athletic Conference team championships in cross country and seven in track and field. Thirty-eight Scots have competed at the NCAA Championships during Rice's tenure, and he helped produce a five-time All-American in distance specialist Katie Wieferich and a trio of three-time All-Americans in Hilary Coady, Emily Moorefield, and Reggie Ray.
Through 16 seasons, Ford's won over 70 percent of her games (171-71-1; .706) and three NCAC championships, while maintaining Wooster's reputation as one of the best NCAA Div. III West, Mid-South, and now Great Lakes Region women's lacrosse programs in the 2000s. Her teams have reached double-digit win totals 12 times, and she was recently inducted to the Ohio Lacrosse Hall of Fame for her contributions to the sport.
Davis, the winningest volleyball coach at the College with 203 victories (203-193) is in year 15 leading the Scots. During her tenure, Wooster has five top-three finishes in the NCAC, highlighted by vaulting into second-place in the conference standings in 2008, which marked the team's highest finish since 1985. Davis has coached an American Volleyball Coaches Association third-team All-American (Ali Drushal in 2008), a first-team College Sports Information Directors of America Academic All-American® (Kelley Johnson in 2012), an NCAA Div. III statistical champion (Zoë Zwegat in blocks in 2013), 16 different all-conference players, and her team has earned the AVCA's "Team Academic Award" 12 times during her tenure.