Emily Orsini, Sports Editor–

Nan Carney-DeBord ‘80, the beloved athletic director of Denison Athletics, is set to retire at the end of this athletic year. 

“There’s never a good time when you love it so much,” said Carney-DeBord. “This is my 45th year in higher education athletics. I feel like the department is in a really good space, so I’m not leaving major gaps behind.”

Prior to her career in higher education athletics, Carney-DeBord was a student-athlete at Denison  who was a part of the field hockey and basketball teams. She was inducted into the Varsity D Association Athletics Hall of Fame at Denison in 1998.

Carney-DeBord has been involved in many significant athletic contributions to Denison, including the development of the HESS (Health Exercise Sports Studies) program as well as the inclusion of three new varsity sports— women’s fencing, and men’s and women’s squash. The new turfed softball field that was built in 2023 stands out to Carney-DeBord as one of her most prideful accomplishments for the athletic department.

“One of my most prideful improvements [to Denison athletics] was the softball field,” Carney-DeBord said. “I knew that was going to make us different. It [gives us] the quintessential facility. [Our athletes] deserve it.”

To Carney-DeBord, these accomplishments over the course of her 14-year career mean so much more because they’re happening at her alma mater.

“I think that what helps me is that I’m a Denisonian, so it’s really important and personal to me. I want [Denison] to be better than I found it, even though I found it in a really good spot.” Carney-DeBord said

Prior to Carney-DeBord’s time working at Denison, she had a very successful coaching career in women’s basketball, where she held an career record of 433-227 and was the 33rd in NCAA DIII history to hit the 400 win mark in her career. 

Carney-DeBord began her career at Bethany College in West Virginia, where she was faced with the task of learning the ropes of higher education athletics without any prominent women in the field to guide her. 

“I was a head coach and a faculty member at age 23, so very young, and I had a lot to learn early on,” Carney-DeBord said. “It was the 80s, so there weren’t a whole lot of female mentors for me, so I had to assume and to start to develop a leadership style [early on].”

After her time in West Virginia, Carney-DeBord was a coach and faculty member at Ohio Wesleyan University for 25 years, where she earned the “Coach of the Year” award seven times in the NCAC, as well as led the Battling Bishops to five NCAC championships, and the NCAA DIII tournament semifinals in 2001. From that same season, Carney-DeBord was named the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association Division III National Coach of the Year. 

Although the accolades and accomplishments are nice, Carney-DeBord was less focused on the glory and more on what she could do next. 

“The reason I stayed at Ohio Wesleyan is because I was always offered another challenge,” Carney-DeBord said. “I was offered an administrative position, then I was the senior woman administrator. I was an associate athletic director and a tenured faculty member. I was able to [be] a head coach of two sports. I was able to drop a sport to have more time to develop other interests, but my interest was always in how I could become the quintessential higher educational leader. That was my focus.”

Carney-DeBord has many positive things to look back on throughout her long career working in higher education athletics, but the one thing she’ll miss the most are the people.

“I love our student athletes. I love to watch [them] compete. I love it. I mean, that’s like the icing [on the cake]. People are like, ‘if you’re in town, you’re always at every game’. I’m like, well, yeah, that’s the fun part,”Carney-DeBord said. “And I’m so lucky to work with such an awesome president, and he and I chatted for some years about a succession plan. And you know, there’s never a good time when you love it so much. This is my 45th year. I feel like the department is in a really good space, and I’m not leaving major gaps. The timing felt right.”