Sunday signals the last day of Andrea Seger's tenure at Ball State University as athletic director.
"I have just completed 30 years in education, and I think that's a good time to look at doing some other things and wind down a bit," Seger said.
She made the announcement back in February that she would be retiring effective Sunday, June 30.
"The quality of our men's and women's athletic programs is a direct reflection of Andi's outstanding leadership over the years," said Blaine A. Brownell, Ball State president, in a press release. "She has overseen the expansion of the department to 10 men's and 12 women's sports, all the while maintaining the university's commitment to the ideals of the student athlete."
Seger received her bachelor's degree at Cortland State University in 1971, and her master's degree at Indiana State University in 1975.
After graduation, she came to Ball State.
"When I came here in 1975, we were not giving scholarships for women's athletics," Seger said.
She began her career here as an assistant professor and an assistant athletics trainer.
"I took care of all the athletic training services for the women's athletic program," Seger said. "We had about 150-180 female athletes at that time, and I was the first full-time female trainer for the program."
During that time, Seger taught physical education classes as well.
In the early 1980s, Ball State dropped four men's sports and four women's sports. One was women's lacrosse.
A member of the team filed a complaint against Ball State University with the office of civil rights under Title IX.
The athletic department spent time dealing with Title IX leading up to Seger's arrival to sport administration in 1982.
Seger became the director of intercollegiate athletics for women at that time.
"We started to move the women's program forward because of that Title IX complaint," Seger said. "We made slow progress over the years until about six years ago under Dr. Jon Worthen, president, when we did a comprehensive gender equity plan, and that moved us to the level that our women's program is equal to our men's program."
She held this position until 1995 when Ball State merged the men's and the women's programs together creating one position.
Seger assumed the position of athletic director and became only the fourth woman in the United States to oversee an NCAA Division 1A athletics department.
After Sunday, the number of women's athletic directors at the Division 1A level will be at five.
"Women have not made great strides on the Division 1A level, which is the highest level at about 120 schools," Seger said. "What's interesting is that three of the six are in our conference: Western Michigan and Northern Illinois. It's disappointing that we'll be back down to five, and I'm hoping numbers will continue to move forward over the years."
Seger will leave the athletic department to retire making significant progress in women's sports at Ball State.
The school coming from handing no scholarships to women athletes in 1975, to women's and men's sports being equal can be attributed to Seger's success.
"I wanted to retire when we were having a good year athletically," Seger said. "And we've had a very good year, and things are going very well for athletics. I thought it would be a very appropriate time to do that, so I can feel good about it."
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