Feb. 26, 2015 Marie Tuite, one of San Jose State University's two deputy directors of athletics and a former star student-athlete at Central Michigan University, is returning to her alma mater as a panelist for the University's fifth-annual Sports Management Association Conference.
The two-day conference takes place, Friday, February 27, and Saturday, February 28, in Warriner Hall's Plachta Auditorium on the Central Michigan University campus.
Tuite will be one of five panelists with ties to NCAA Division I competition discussing major college athletics from an administrator's perspective. Former Stanford football head coach Tyrone Willingham, now a member of the College Football Playoff Selection Committee, University of South Carolina senior associate athletics director Judy Van Horn, Wofford College director of athletics Richard Johnson and Texas Tech University assistant athletic director Rodney Lacey.
"It's always a touch point moment when your alma mater invites you back to campus to share your experiences. What I love about this particular conference is most of the speakers have an affiliation and fondness for Central Michigan University. We were student-athletes, coaches or staff members and returning to campus will be particularly special," says Tuite, who was inducted into the university's Athletics Hall of Fame in 1990. At the time, she was just the third female student-athlete inductee.
Amy Perko, the executive director of the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics, is the conference's keynote speaker. Tracie Hitz, the NCAA's Director of Business Operations, Women's Basketball, and Kevin Martinez, Vice President of Corporate Outreach for ESPN, are two more individual presentors.