Troy Dannen

A respected leader in collegiate athletics with deep Midwestern roots, Troy Dannen is in his third year as Nebraska’s Director of Athletics. Dannen guides Nebraska’s 25-sport athletic department that ranks among the nation’s most successful programs both athletically and academically.

Since arriving in March of 2024, the Huskers have post three straight top-25 finishes in the Learfield Director’s Cup, marking the first time Husker Athletics has accomplished that feat in more than two decades.  

The Huskers enjoyed broad-based success in 2025-26, posting nine top-10 national finishes in earning a 17th-place showing in the Directors’ Cup, tying their best finish since 2001. The Husker men’s basketball program reached the NCAA Sweet 16 for the first time in school history, the Husker softball team reached the Women’s College World Series for the first time since 2013, while the men’s and women’s outdoor track squads posted top-10 finishes in the same season since 2003.

Dannen has also positioned Nebraska at the forefront of the evolving collegiate athletics landscape. In January of 2026, Nebraska added its 25th sport with the addition of flag football. NU became the first Power Four Conference school to announce the addition of flag football, which plays its inaugural championship season in the spring of 2028. 
In April of 2026, Dannen announced the most ambitious project undertaken in Nebraska Athletics history with the “Big Red Rebuild.” The $600 million project will transform Memorial Stadium while honoring its storied legacy and usher in a new era of energy, access and year-round engagement. The redesigned stadium will offer improved access, seat comfort, enhanced sightlines, and upgraded amenities throughout the entire stadium when completed in 2028.

Nebraska has maintained its strong tradition of academic excellence, posting a 92% Graduation Success Rate in the most recent NCAA release. NU had 10 student-athletes earn Academic All-America honors, raising its Big Ten-leading total to 383, while 323 student-athletes earned Academic All-Big Ten honors in 2025-26.

Dannen has long been a leader in charting the course for the future of college athletics and that has continued in Lincoln. Dannen is in his second year on the College Football Playoff Selection Committee, continuing his impact on the national level, and has been active in Big Ten leadership roles. 

During the 2024-25 season, five Husker teams finished in the top four nationally, as the volleyball program reached the Final Four, while the wrestling team posted its highest finish in school history with a national runner-up showing and had multiple individual national champions for the first time since 1984.  The softball program won its first NCAA regional since 2014 while baseball repeated as Big Ten Tournament champions.  After his arrival in Lincoln in March of 2024, Dannen’s first spring featured a pair of Big Ten titles, as the Husker baseball team won the Big Ten Tournament, while the men’s track team won the Big Ten Outdoor Championships. Both the Husker men’s and women’s track teams also posted top-15 NCAA finishes in the outdoor season. 

Dannen has been a national leader during his previous stints as Athletic Director at Washington, Tulane and Northern Iowa.  He served from 2021 to 2023 as a member of the NCAA Constitution Committee and the Division I Transformation Committee. He also previously served as chair of the NCAA Football Competition Committee and was an Executive Committee member of the Football Oversight Committee. In total, Dannen has served on seven NCAA committees.  In 2022, Dannen was a finalist for Sports Business Journal’s Athletic Director of the Year award, and he received the Distinguished American Award from the Sugar Bowl Chapter of the National Football Foundation.
Dannen came to Lincoln after serving as Director of Athletics at the University of Washington. He helped guide the Huskies’ transition to the Big Ten Conference and oversaw a football program that reached the College Football Playoff National Championship Game in January of 2024. 

He took over in Seattle in the fall of 2023 after eight successful years as Director of Athletics at Tulane University. While at Tulane, Green Wave student-athletes earned 49 All-America honors, a national championship, 21 conference championships and 41 postseason appearances.

In 2022-23, Tulane football won its first American Athletic Conference football championship and won the Cotton Bowl over USC, which was ranked ninth in the nation at that time. The men’s basketball program won 20 regular-season games for the first time in two decades. Additionally, men’s tennis advanced to its sixth NCAA Tournament in seven years, both bowling and beach volleyball finished ranked in the top 20, and baseball won the conference championship.

Tulane’s football program participated in an unprecedented three consecutive bowl games from 2018 to 2020, winning back-to-back bowl games for the first time in 128 years of football at the University. In the classroom, Tulane student-athletes excelled at a high level. At the end of the 2022-23 academic year, over 68 percent of Green Wave student-athletes earned a 3.0 GPA or better, with a 93 percent Graduation Success Rate and a record-setting department Academic Progress Report of 992, with seven teams earning a perfect 1000 APR score.

Dannen spearheaded fundraising efforts and numerous capital projects at Tulane. He helped secure the largest unrestricted gift in Tulane Athletics history, an endowment gift that funded the operation of a new sport (sailing), and a $10 million lead gift for capital renovations, which was the second-largest gift in department history. In addition, marketing and licensing revenue grew four-fold, and in 2022-23, Tulane football, basketball and volleyball set ticket sales and revenue records. Under Dannen’s leadership, the Green Wave Club Annual Fund grew by 40 percent in donors and 45 percent in dollars raised.
Increases in fundraising and major gift donors positively impacted capital project development and completion. A $13 million renovation to the Reilly Natatorium, home of the swimming and diving program, as well as $8 million in renovations to locker rooms and the sports medicine area inside the Wilson Center were completed in 2023. Dannen also oversaw construction of a new dining facility, weight room, basketball and volleyball locker rooms. Tulane also completed a $2.4 million academic center renovation and a $5 million television and digital production center.

Before taking over the Green Wave program, Dannen served eight years as the Director of Athletics at the University of Northern Iowa (UNI) from 2008 to 2015. During his tenure, the Panthers enjoyed success at both the conference and national levels, highlighted by an NCAA Sweet 16 appearance in 2010 by the UNI men’s basketball team. During his eight-year tenure, UNI was recognized with 39 All-Americans, 13 Coaches of the Year and nine Missouri Valley Conference (MVC) Players of the Year. UNI football, men’s basketball, women’s basketball, volleyball and softball combined to reach 15 NCAA tournaments and 20 postseason berths during that stretch. For his efforts, Dannen was recognized as NACDA’s FCS Athletic Director of the Year in 2014.

Prior to his time at UNI, Dannen served as the Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union’s Executive Director for seven years, overseeing 400 high schools and 10 sports.
Dannen grew up on a farm just outside Marshalltown, Iowa, and graduated from UNI in 1989 with a degree in communications. He is married to Amy and has four children: Elizabeth, William, Emily and Holly.