Marie Tuite was promoted to the position of director of athletics at San José State University on May 19, 2017 after seven years of university service in several executive athletics administration positions. As of July 1, 2019, Tuite is one of 10 women who is an athletics director at a NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) institution.
Her many contributions at San José State include:
• Leading a NCAA Division I athletics department with a $34-million budget that supports 22 NCAA Division I programs and 490 student-athletes
• Creating a positive culture for student-athletes’ academic retention, success and graduation. In 2018-19, Spartan student-athletes earned more than 300 institutional, conference and national academic and scholar-athlete awards.
• Facility enhancements on the University’s 62-acre South Campus. Student-athletes now have a state-of-the art men’s and women’s golf practice facility; the Stephens Family Pitching & Hitting Facility for baseball; and new home facilities for men’s and women’s soccer, women’s tennis, softball, and beach volleyball; and a commitment for a football operations center connected to CEFCU Stadium. On the main campus, there are recently renovated locker room facilities for men’s and women’s basketball, volleyball and women’s gymnastics; and a new aquatics center for men’s and women’s water polo matches and women’s swimming and diving meets.
• Facilitating a 15-year naming rights agreement in 2016 for CEFCU Stadium, the Home of the Spartans; the department’s first all-sports apparel partnership in 2017, a six-year agreement with adidas; and creating mutually beneficial corporate participation opportunities for the Women’s Tennis Association and The Golf Channel to partner with San Jose State Athletics.
• Adding the sports of women’s indoor and outdoor track and field in 2013, beach volleyball in 2014, men’s water polo in 2015 and reinstating the men’s track and field program in 2018.
• Shepherding the most successful donor major gift campaign for Spartan Athletics in any two-year period in the program’s 125-year-plus history.
• Successfully promoting San José State to be the practice site for the Carolina Panthers as the National Football Conference (NFC) representative in Super Bowl 50 and Clemson University in preparation for the 2019 College Football Playoff national championship.
• Taking a leadership role in San José State’s invitation and acceptance to join the Mountain West in July 2013.
She originally joined San José State in June 2010 as a senior associate athletics director and the athletics department’s chief operating officer. Tuite also held the positions of deputy director of athletics/internal operations, fulfilled the role of senior woman administrator (SWA) and was the interim athletics director in 2012 and 2017 before being named athletics director.
Tuite was a sports supervisor for football, men’s and women’s basketball and women’s golf. She managed future football scheduling, compliance, business affairs, and student services. The football team won its two bowl games, the 2012 Military Bowl and the 2015 Auto National Cure Bowl, and the Spartans as a department captured 11 conference team championships.
Her professional career includes executive positions at Pacific-12 Conference universities and the NCAA. She came to the Spartans from Seattle University where she was a Special Assistant to the Athletics Director. Tuite assisted Seattle University’s transition to NCAA Division I athletics status.
Her first athletics administrative position was at Alma (Mich.) College in 1981 as the Director of Women’s Athletics Programs and Activities. She joined the University of California women’s athletics staff in 1984 as an assistant athletics director.
Tuite worked for the NCAA as an Assistant Director of Championships from 1989 to 1994. She assisted the organization’s sport committees in the administration of the National Collegiate Championships program and coordinated the Association’s corporate partner, merchandising, promotional, and official ball programs for NCAA championships.
She returned to a campus setting in 1994 as a senior associate athletics director at the University of Washington. Her duties included overseeing the process and appointment of new head coaches, directing daily operations, and initiating and implementing “keys to success” for priority Husky sports programs.
A two-sport student-athlete and graduate of Central Michigan University, she was inducted into the university’s Athletics Hall of Fame in 1990 as just the third female inductee. Tuite played field hockey and was a star basketball player who majored in physical education. She earned her master’s degree from her alma mater in athletic administration.
Tuite is a member of NACDA (National Association of College Directors of Athletics), Women Leaders in College Sports, and the Women’s Sports Foundation. In May 2012, she was one of 41 local female executives honored at the 28th annual Tribute to Women Awards program by the YWCA Silicon Valley. She served on the 2019 College Football National Championship Host Committee Executive Board and is on the San Jose Sports Authority Board of Directors.
The native of Livonia, Mich., has two sons, Michael, a 2015 University of Washington graduate, and John.
