For Grace Calhoun, sport has always been a way of life. She grew up a gymnast and did track and field throughout college. But she never thought her interest in athletics would evolve into a full-fledged career.
In fact, a math and science whiz, Calhoun studied electrical engineering while an undergraduate student at Brown University. A side job in the athletics department at the University of Florida, where she was later studying physiology on a path toward biomedical engineering, exposed her to the new field. She was hooked.
“I started out doing student development and academic support for Florida’s football program,” Calhoun says. “I was working with young people and I was teaching and the nexus was sport, and I immediately fell in love with it.”
She took a leap of faith, changing her master’s course of study to exercise and sport sciences, and ended up going on to pursue her Ph.D. in higher education administration.
“That was really the start of everything,” she says. “Going on 25 years, I’ve never looked back.”
Before joining Penn as its director of athletics and recreation in 2014, Calhoun worked at a slew of institutions big and small, learning all that has positioned her to be a “star” hire for the Quakers, as President Amy Gutmann has said.
Calhoun’s first two-and-a-half years have been exciting, full of changes and ambitious goals for athletics. In it for the “long haul,” Calhoun hopes to infuse a culture of competitiveness, innovation, and engagement that Penn’s sports program has been missing.
The Current sat down with Calhoun after winter break in her office in Weightman Hall to discuss her background, some of her biggest lessons learned, her plans for the years ahead, and much, much more.
Tell me about your background.
As I think about my upbringing, I’ve really come to find that there were two things that always drove me. The first was a sense of fairness in how the world should work. I was petite and also one of the only girls on my—you can’t even call it street—my mountain, which I grew up on in the Catskills in upstate New York. I felt like I was always being excluded from activities. I found it ignited a spark in me from an early age where I was very driven by a sense of feeling like if I could do something, I should fit in. I think a big part of what I’ve always liked about sport is it’s the total equalizer. If you can compete, you belong. Obviously with my size and stature, and because Title IX was just coming into being, there weren’t a lot of opportunities for girls—ballet and later on gymnastics were the only things that were available to me as a small child. I competed as a gymnast up through 11th grade, at which point after a series of broken bones and then having a big growth spurt—I went from 4 feet, 10 inches to my now current, very tall stature of 5 feet, 4 inches in one year—it became clear to me that my body wasn’t going to be able to handle the transition. I converted to track my senior year of high school, and joined the team at Brown during my first semester. I had a great four years of participation there. The other driver for me was this deep-seated passion that came through for sport because I was really able at a young age to understand how much of my development came through my sport participation. The time management, the perseverance, the grit, the teamwork—all the things that we talk about as being so important to being productive citizens. I found I went from being a deathly shy child to my current capacity because of my development through sport.
Were you a runner?
At Brown I did field events, primarily jumping. My progression was being a gymnast and being used to flipping, twisting, and everything like that. I jokingly say I was before my time because I think pole vault would have been the perfect event for me, but it was pre-women’s pole vault.
What were your biggest lessons learned from undergrad?
If I look at my undergraduate experience, it was a desire really to stay part of a team and just my love of competing in athletics that led to the track participation, but I was very average in every way. I realize now that I didn’t necessarily play into my strengths. People told me I would make a great middle-distance runner, but I kept fighting it. It wasn’t until after college that I really got into distance running and ended up running the 800 quite a bit. I look back now and I think that would have been a great fit for me in college, but again, as with so much, learning in life comes through trial and error. Also in undergrad, I was very extrinsically motivated early on. I think it was part of not wanting to be told I couldn’t do things. I always loved math and science, so I logically chose engineering as my field of study. I’ll never forget meeting with my faculty adviser the first week of college. He took one look at my transcript and me and told me that I should ‘drop out now’ because I would never make it in electrical engineering. I remember walking out and probably for 10 or 15 minutes I cried. Then I did what I always do: I picked myself up and said, ‘This isn’t right,’ and I made it my mission to prove to this man that I could do this and that I shouldn’t be judged on my gender or my background or anything else. So when I say I was very extrinsically motivated, what I mean is that I found even from the first days of classes that electrical engineering was not my passion. I worked hard and I excelled, but I was more excelling because I felt like I had something to prove. I also always felt that I wasn’t just representing me. There was an awareness that if I drop out, if I don’t make it, it reaffirms to this man that women can’t do this or people from my upbringing—a small, rural high school without an AP curriculum—can’t do this. I ended up graduating magna cum laude, and because of that was recognized in a special way at graduation. It gave me so much pleasure to go up to the dean who had been my former faculty adviser and say, ‘I just want you to understand that what my high school transcript or my gender might not have shown you was my grit, my drive to do this, and that I hope you will approach future situations differently.’ I hope I had a small impact on his future leadership of the school.
What’d you do after college?
I had a great job out of college in Washington, D.C., working for American Management Systems. But what I had found was that being driven by these external, extrinsic reasons to get that degree left me feeling empty because I wasn’t passionate about what I was doing. At the time I started running more and became intrigued by the human body. I started to get really into working out and nutrition. I connected those interests with my engineering, and thought maybe I’d like biomedical engineering. I ended up at the University of Florida working under a fantastic faculty member, Scott Powers, who had a very high-tech lab. I learned so much, but I also confirmed that being in a lab and working on instruments and with data wasn’t my passion either. I ended up finding my real passion while working a side job in Florida’s athletics department. Tom Jones, who was a track and field coach at the time, and a great early mentor for me, ended up picking me up on a graduate assistantship with track and field so I could stay on scholarship. I ended up pursuing my Ph.D. in higher education administration.
I think it’s admirable that you were able to admit you weren’t passionate about something, and pursue an entirely different career path. That’s pretty courageous.
When you think of it, we live in a society that’s very status-driven, right? So, having a good degree, making a good salary were important for me coming out of college. I would say working in college athletics, it probably took me 10 or more years to get back to the salary I had right out of college. I knew I was going to make some sacrifices, but ultimately I felt if I followed my passion that I would get to a good place. As a mother of four, I give my daughters consistent advice every day—to show up with your best attitude and energy, and work hard to find your passion.
So you got your master’s in exercise and sport sciences and your doctorate in higher ed administration at Florida. I see you also have an MBA from Lehigh University. What led you to that decision?
I’ve always teasingly said that if I could figure out how to get paid to go to school and take classes, I’d do it my entire career. When I was working for the Patriot League as an associate executive director, we were set up through Lehigh University, so I had the opportunity to take any classes that I wanted for free. It started as a desire to fill in what I felt were some gaps in my knowledge base, and it turned into my MBA. I loved the experience and found that it really did give me a very valuable skillset that I use often today.
Give me the gist of all the places you’ve worked.
After serving as an intern for Florida’s administrative team—then-athletics director Jeremy Foley and associates—I went to St. Francis University. I became one of three administrators for what at the time was the smallest Division I program. I was only there for a little less than a year when the athletics director left for another job and I was appointed as the interim athletics director. I was 27 years old. I look back and laugh. Thank goodness I didn’t know the totality of the job or I never would have had the confidence to agree. Those six months of learning were phenomenal. I’ve always been thankful to the very patient coaches who helped me learn as I went. I also met my husband Jason there. He has always been my biggest grounding force and has sacrificed immensely to allow me to follow my passion.
Then I was presented the opportunity to be the associate executive director of the Patriot League. I worked there for four years under two very strong female leaders: Connie Hurlbut, who was the first Division I female commissioner, and Carolyn Schlie Femovich, who had come to the Patriot League from Penn. It was a period of great change in the Patriot League. The conference was really not on sound footing and really needed to redefine itself if it was going to survive. We contemplated scholarships, membership expansion, and a few other really defining pieces that I think set the conference on a bit of a different trajectory. I probably would not have left that job but for my husband getting an opportunity at Dartmouth as head golf professional and men’s golf coach. After a short stint in student affairs at Dartmouth, I served as associate athletics director for the rest of my time there. It was a healthy gut check to experience something else at least for a little bit of time and to say, ‘No, this is what I really love.’ As I look at my years at Dartmouth, I can probably say that it was the richest couple of years in terms of really learning about my strengths and the proper environment for me. When I later interviewed at Indiana University, I asked a lot of tough questions because I decided that if I was going to move, with what was at the time a growing family, it wasn’t going to happen if it wasn’t a great fit. It ended up being the right place at the right time. At Indiana, I was associate athletics director and senior woman administrator. I was brought in specifically to make a lot of change. I loved it because it was probably the time in my career where I embraced this mindset I have today: If you want to be successful, you have to be OK with failure. Not everything you try is going to work when you need to rebuild. Toward the end of that tenure, I realized I had much more confidence. It was one of the bigger milestones for me coming to terms with the fact that I was ready for an AD job. At some point you just have to put yourself out there. I will be forever grateful to Loyola for giving me that opportunity.
How was your experience at Loyola University Chicago as AD?
My boss at Loyola was Vice President Rob Kelly, and he was somebody that I so respected because I think he had that same mentality as I, that we are going to strive for excellence, and we didn’t know all the answers, we were going to make some mistakes in doing it, but that we were also going to do some great work. My deputy AD was current Temple AD Pat Kraft, who is a tremendously talented administrator. I really threw my heart and soul into the job, and while it was only a three-year tenure, I dare say we did more in three years than they had done a long time prior to that. Athletics had become pretty stagnant in some ways, you might even say irrelevant, at Loyola. It was the chance to jumpstart the program, so everything from hiring a lot of new coaches, changing conferences, and celebrating a really important point in Loyola’s past. We just had so many unifying events that really put athletics in a different light on the campus. I learned the art of getting people together, building consensus, being a facilitator, and knowing that at the end of the day, the athletics director has to make a lot of difficult decisions, but if people at least feel like they have a voice, they are more apt to embrace the decision than if they didn’t.
Tell me about your experience so far at Penn.
I started here by taking a critical look at football and basketball. Looking at the history and tradition of Penn, and the national landscape of college sports, I think that was a logical starting point, and really felt that those three sports—men’s and women’s basketball, and football—that those are three of the flagship sports for Penn and if they are healthy and well, I really felt that it would benefit the entire Athletics Department. I was told by the provost that Coach Ray Priore would be stepping in for football at the end of the 2014 season as the head coach, so that was not a decision I can take any credit for, but I knew I had to position him to be successful. Where I really tried to step in was to work with Coach Priore to elevate the offensive and defensive coordinator positions and ensure that he had a top-notch staff. By bringing in two top-notch coordinators, I think we made a very smooth transition to Coach Priore. I tease him that he set a very high bar, having served as our head coach for two years and having two Ivy League championships. I’m just thrilled in everything that’s happened around the football program. When you look at basketball, I had known that men’s basketball was going to be one of my tougher challenges, not just at Penn, but in my career to date.
Why was it so difficult?
When you looked at Jerome Allen, you had so many things that you’d want to see in a head coach. You had the former all-star standout player who is going into our Hall of Fame this year, you had someone who was absolutely beloved by the team, someone who was beloved by the fan base, but yet at the same time we weren’t successful. So it was a year of meeting with Jerome and our then-deputy Alanna Shanahan. I think it was an example of a really good process because we would have regular communications about the status of the team and about how things were going. Jerome is a phenomenal Quaker and he knew as well as anyone that things were not where they needed to be. I just have the utmost respect for Jerome because he always knew that the program was much bigger than him and he knew that it was time to step away. Because of that, we were able to part ways on very good terms. I still hear from him periodically and he’s doing exceedingly well with the [Boston] Celtics. His twins are at school at Penn and he’s so tied into the alumni base. Jerome is the one person who will always ask me, ‘What can I do to help?’ It just speaks to his character.
So you faced your first big challenge at Penn. Are you happy with where the men’s basketball team is going now?
Absolutely. Before hiring Steve Donahue, we looked at 54 sitting head coaches and two or three really top assistants. We did an exhaustive search just to end up with the person that the Daily Pennsylvanian told me I should have hired from the start. But, really, I found in Steve Donahue everything that everyone had told me would be important to basketball. He’s somebody who had spent 10 years at Penn. He’s a Philadelphia native. He embraces the Big 5. He’s an incredible coach, but also an incredible recruiter. He’s been other places, he’s seen other things, and I think he truly appreciates everything Penn. I’ve been at seven institutions and I’ve gotten the sense that it doesn’t matter how talented someone is, how smart they are, how successful they’ve been elsewhere, but that they have to fit the culture of the program and they have to be in complete alignment with what leadership is trying to build. I interviewed Steve for five hours. There was probably no stone that remained unturned by the end of the interview. And we have a coach in Mike McLaughlin and a program on the women’s side that set the bar for the Ivy League.
Football and basketball aside, what are your other priorities?
Another big priority for me coming in was to ensure that the programs that were doing well continued to do well, and those that needed some extra support to do better got it. Lacrosse is a premier sport for Penn, with significant past success. The women have had nine Ivy titles in 10 years and have made the NCAA tournament 10 straight times. We did need to make some changes to get certain programs back on the right track. We did that and those are always tough decisions because you know that you’re dealing with someone’s livelihood, someone’s family when you make those changes. But ultimately, at the end of the day, my barometer has always been what’s best for the student athletes. If I feel that a change is what’s best, then I have understood that it’s my responsibility to make those changes then and find the right person who’s going to create that environment that we need.
You came into this position after Steve Bilsky, who was here for two decades. Did you face added pressure because of this?
I’ve learned about this first through my husband. When he went to Dartmouth, he was only the third golf pro and coach in 80 years. What I learned through him was you can’t be that other person. You can only be yourself. I love the quote, “Be yourself because everyone else is already taken.” To answer your question though, yes, there absolutely was pressure. Steve Bilsky was not only athletics director for 20 years, but he was somebody who is arguably part of the most storied team of all time for Penn and had such a legacy here. I’ve had to find a way to embrace that legacy while at the same time knowing that I was hired because of my strengths and who I am, and I have to find a way to now lead the next chapter. Steve Bilsky has been incredibly gracious in the transition. He has always been very giving of his time and answered questions if I have had them but yet at the same time, he’s known when it was time to back away and let the next person run with things. I hope that when the time comes, hopefully in the distant future, that I’ll know when it’s the right time to step away and let the next person forge on.
Tell me about your plan for the coming years.
Right now, we are working to launch a new strategic plan, which focuses on three things. First and foremost, competitiveness. We want to have championship-caliber teams. I love the fact that Penn has such a rich history and tradition of athletics, but I don’t want to live in the past. I want to feel like our good years are ahead, that we are going to win championships going forward and we’re not just nostalgic about how good we used to be. We also want to be sending athletes forward. We’ve had some national champions in my time, with Sam Mattis in the discus and Chris Swanson in the 1650 in swimming, for instance. We’ve had our points of excellence. Now, how do we expand and have more of those? Competitiveness is a really big part of the strategic plan. The other two areas are innovation and engagement. I get the question a lot, ‘How do we compete with Harvard, Yale, and Princeton?’ and my answer is, ‘To be Penn.’ We certainly have the utmost respect for Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, but we want to be Penn, and I think our formula for success looks a little bit different. We are an innovative University; we are launching some things right now that I think set us on a different course. We want to be one of the best programs in the country in sports performance, and working with Penn Medicine I know that we can do that, and do it better than any of our peers. We are working on some concepts with Wharton around leadership and how we can do that better than anyone in the country. We are really trying to use innovation to pose a different, and in our minds a better, alternative that wins more of those head-to-head battles, regardless if it’s Harvard, Yale, or Princeton, or Stanford, Northwestern, or Duke. We want student athletes to feel like Penn is their destination choice. And then with engagement, a big part of our platform is looking at wellness and mental health because I believe having sport participation is important for all students and also faculty and staff.
How often do you make it to Penn games?
I try to get to every game I can. Certainly with football and basketball I do my best to get to all home games. And then with the other sports I try to work with the coaches to identify their key games, because obviously with 33 sports it’s impossible to get to everything. I increasingly try to show up at practices and spend the right amount of time really being visible and present to the student athletes because it’s really important to me that they understand how much I value each and every one of them. As someone who came out of an Olympic sport background, I never want our Olympic sport athletes to feel like they are any less important to our division than football or basketball student athletes.
In the Ivy League, only two athletics directors are female. You are one of them. You’ve also worked for Josie Harper at Dartmouth, who was the first female athletics director in Ivy history. Has it posed any problems for you being one of only a few ADs that are female?
I’ve certainly been cognizant of the fact that there are not a lot of them, but it’s certainly not new for me to say, ‘Well, I can’t let that stop me.’ I’ve just rotated off the board for a leadership organization for women within college athletics called the National Association of Collegiate Women Athletics Administrators. Having been on the board for the past four years, I’ve looked at all of the data, and women are making some progress, but not great strides. I think there are still only 25 to 30 female Division I athletics directors out of more than 350 institutions. [In early January], I traveled to the Rose Bowl to celebrate Penn’s 100th anniversary of participation, and I spent a lot of time with the Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany, who is one of the other individuals who I very much considered a mentor throughout my career. While chatting on New Year’s Day, about anything and everything, one of the things I remarked to him was that for the first time in my career, I don’t feel my gender on Penn’s campus. I just feel like I’m the athletics director. I don’t feel like I’m a female athletics director. I think a lot of it is because we’ve had so many years of strong female leadership at the University. When you consider presidents Judith Rodin and Amy Gutmann, and just looking at how many of our leadership positions on campus are occupied by females, like Maureen Rush as one of the few female superintendents of police in the country, I think the message has been sent that if you are competent and you can do the job, that those other things don’t matter. Whether someone is female, a person of color. And it’s very refreshing to see the climate that’s been created because I will say that I have not felt that on any of the other campuses I’ve been on. It’s a real tribute to the leadership here. So many other times I’ve gotten asked to speak on campuses and it’s on work-life balance or being a female with a job, and I don’t get those requests at Penn because I think I’m just another administrator, and I hope one doing a competent job at the end of the day.
