Judy Rose - Athletics Administrative Career

Athletics Administrative Career

Rose was promoted to assistant athletic director in 1981 and was named associate director of athletics in 1985 to then-athletic director and men’s basketball coach Jeff Mullins. In 1982, the 49ers women’s program left the AIAW for NCAA Division I, and Rose was named assistant athletic director.

In 1990, Mullins was asked by the UNC System Board of Governors to relinquish his dual role. With Coach Mullins' recommendation UNC Charlotte Chancellor Dr. James H. Woodward appointed Judy Rose director of athletics at UNC Charlotte on July 1, 1990. Dr. Woodward promoted Mullins to Associate Vice Chancellor/men’s basketball coach at that time.

Rose became the sixth person to head the athletics department and just the second who was not also the men’s basketball coach. She was the third woman, ever, to spearhead a collegiate program.

Since her appointment as A.D., Rose has added a full-time Compliance Officer, revamped the athletic academic advising program, hired a full-time strength and conditioning staff and developed a goals and objectives program for head coaches, administrative staff and student-athletes.

Early in her administrative career, Rose pioneered the department’s most successful fund raiser, the annual Great Gold Rush Auction. It began in 1984 and has generated over nearly $3 million in its 27-year history, including more than $100,000 each of the last 20 years, a record $270,000 in 2006 and six straight years over the $200,000 plateau. She was also the creator of the 49ers' successful "Let Me Play" Luncheon that raises funds for women’s athletics. 2011 will see the 8th Annual Luncheon, which has raised over $600,000 for women’s athletics.

In her first year as director, the program left the Sun Belt Conference and joined the Metro Conference; the athletic department’s D. L. Phillips Athletic Complex, home of the varsity baseball, soccer and softball fields, underwent dramatic change; and plans were finalized for the James H. Barnhardt Student Activity Center and Dale F. Halton Arena.

The athletic program received a construction facelift as two major projects were unveiled in 1994. In October 1994, the Wachovia Athletic Field House, a 10,000-square foot locker room and office complex for baseball, men’s soccer, women’s soccer and softball was opened. By 1996, the 49ers had the $5.7 million Irwin Belk Track and Field Center/Transamerica Field, a 4,000-seat stadium complex which includes a 400-meter track, Transamerica Field for soccer and 11,000-square feet in field house space. Tennis courts were relocated to make a 15-court venue in the Phillips Complex.

The multi-purpose $26 million Barnhardt Student Activity Center (SAC) and the 9,105-seat Halton Arena hosted its first athletic contest December 2, 1996. Rose attracted what at the time was the largest gift in UNC Charlotte history in naming the Barnhardt Center and a second substantial gift in naming Halton Arena. The Miltimore-Wallis Athletic Training Center, which is an addition to the SAC, was completed in December 2003 and in the summer of 2006, the 49ers broke ground on Robert and Mariam Hayes Stadium. In 1995, Rose and Dr. Woodward led Charlotte into Conference USA and in 2003 accepted an invitation to join the Atlantic 10 Conference in the 2005-06 season.

Rose successfully lead the administration efforts to add a college football program to the Charlotte 49ers, when Chancellor Dr. Phillip Dubois and the University Board of Trustees voted to add the program in 2008. In March 2011 Rose hired the 49ers' first football coach, former Wake Forest Demon Deacons defensive coordinator Brad Lambert. In April 2011 construction began on the program's $45 million dollar home stadium, which will debut for the inaugural game on August 31, 2013.

With the addition of 63 more athletics scholarships for the football program, an offsetting amount of Title IX mandated women's sports will be added. These will most likely include Field Hockey, Women's Lacrosse and Swimming; however, Rose has been an advocate of adding Competitive Cheerleading as a Title IX compliant sport.

Rose coordinated the 49ers effort as host institution of the 1991 and 1993 NCAA Men’s Basketball Southeast Regionals, the 1994 NCAA Men’s Final Four, the 1996 NCAA Women’s Final Four and the 1999 and 2000 NCAA Men’s Soccer College Cup. Charlotte joined Kentucky and Minnesota as the only programs to host both basketball Final Fours. More recently, Charlotte hosted the 2008 NCAA Men’s Basketball Regional and the 2011 NCAA Second and Third Rounds as Time Warner Cable Arena.