Despite the many successes Eugene Marshall has helped to foster in Iona athletics, Marshall decided to step down as athletic director, effective June 1, 2013.

In June 2011, Marshall was hired by Iona to replace Pat Lyons as the eighth athletic director in the school’s history.

Marshall, who was the acting director of athletics for Ramapo College during the 2010-11 school year, was also the deputy director of athletics for the United States Military Academy between 1998 and 2005.

During Marshall’s two years at Iona, the Gaels had one of the most successful two-year periods in Iona sports history.

Marshall oversaw two NCAA tournament trips accomplished by the men’s basketball team, the first time that the program did so in more than a decade.

This included the first at-large bid into the tournament by the men’s basketball program in their history.

Other programs to reach the NCAA tournament include men’s cross country, softball and women’s water polo.

The women’s basketball team also reached the WNIT for the fourth time in their history under Marshall’s tenure.

Aside from various tournament appearances achieved under his time as athletic director, Marshall also helped to improve sports facilities, namely giving the baseball team a new home field at City Park.

The departure of Marshall was unexpected considering he took over the sports programs less than two years before.

Marshall said, “My resignation was a tough decision to make, but one that I needed to make for my family.”

With Marshall leaving Iona in less than two months, the school has started to work toward finding a successor.

Marshall, alongside Senior Vice President for Advancement and External Affairs Paul J. Sutera and Senior Associate Athletics Director Matt Glovaski, will be in charge of hiring the next athletic director.

When Iona pursues hiring a new athletic director, it will have specific tasks that it will be looking for out of the hiree. According to Sutera, “We’ll be looking to elevate athletics and opportunities for our student-athletes at Iona. With the largest-ever comprehensive fundraising campaign in Iona’s history moving forward, athletics has a significant role in both enhancing resources and benefitting from them. The new athletics director will play a key role in helping us realize those goals.”

When pursuing a new athletic director, Iona plans to find their new administrator through a national search.

According to Marshall, the search for the new athletic director will be “swift, but thorough.”

The new athletic director will face several challenges that include further improving facilities for Iona’s 19 athletic programs, along with a changing MAAC that will feature two new schools, Monmouth and Quinnipiac, at the start of the next academic calendar year

Monmouth and Quinnipiac will represent the first expansion in the conference since 1997 when Canisus and Marist joined the MAAC. Loyola will leave the MAAC at the outset of the next academic year.