Boesel named Chapman's ninth Director of Athletics

ORANGE, Calif. – Following a nationwide search, Chapman University’s Chancellor Daniele Struppa announced on Monday that current Associate Director of Athletics Terry Boesel has been named the Panthers’ next Director of Athletics. Boesel will succeed David Currey who announced his retirement in January, effective this summer.

Boesel (pronounced BO-zul) becomes just the ninth director in Chapman’s 90-year history of athletics and the first one selected since 1990 when Currey took the helm. The appointment will officially begin on August 1.

“It gives me great pleasure to announce Associate Director of Athletics Terry Boesel has agreed to step up to that role. Terry has 24 years of athletic department experience—12 of which are here at Chapman.” said Struppa in an email announcement to the Chapman community.

Boesel will be the first Chapman Athletics Director to hold the designation of David Currey Endowed Directorship of Athletics. As a way of recognizing Currey's incredible 25-year tenure in athletics, much of this $1 million endowment was established with institutional funding, prudently saved over time by the Office of Athletics, and is being augmented by the generosity of supportive institutional friends. Though Boesel will be the first to hold the post, each succeeding director will hold this title.

“Terry has been a Panther for a long time. He has played a big role in the development of Chapman’s Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) as well as the University’s invitation to join the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) in 2011. He will continue and build on the successes achieved by our student-athletes.”

Boesel, 53, takes over Chapman’s NCAA Division III Athletics program which has thrived in its 21 years since moving from NCAA Division II. The Panthers have won a pair of Division III national championships in softball (1995) and baseball (2003) to go along with 18 regional championships. Since joining the SCIAC four years, Chapman has won three conference championships in the past two years, including its first-ever NCAA postseason berth in football in 2014.

An Oregon native, Boesel still ranks No. 13 in the state's history with 2,020 points as a prep basketball star at Powder Valley High School. He earned his bachelor's degree in exercise physiology from Oregon State University in 1986 where he met his wife Joan who played softball for the Beavers. He went on to get his master's in sports management from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 1991.

Several assistant coaching positions within the high school and small college ranks led him to the Director of Men’s Basketball Operations position at UCLA under head coach Jim Harrick in the early 1990s. Eventually he landed at Chapman University where he served as an assistant men’s basketball coach from 1992-95 under current head coach Mike Bokosky, and also was part of the Panthers’ first football coaching staff in 1994.

He left Chapman to become the head men’s basketball coach at Division III rival University of La Verne from 1995-98 and would return for a second tour with the Leopards from 2001-03. There he compiled a career record of 63-60, including a 16-9 mark in 2002-03. In between he spent three seasons as an assistant coach for Division I University of San Diego men’s basketball.

After his second stint with La Verne, Boesel returned to Orange County as an assistant coach at UC Irvine under Pat Douglass from 2003-06, where he helped the Anteaters earn back-to-back Big West Conference tournament appearances in 2005 and ‘06 and a second-place finish in the Big West Conference standings in ’06.

Boesel returned to his roots in 2006 and left the coaching ranks to become Chapman's Associate Director of Athletics where he has handled all matters relating to NCAA rules and legislation, compliance and eligibility, and overseen the university’s physical activity class scheduling for the past nine years. He’s served as Currey’s right-hand man on university matters such as the NCAA’s annual Equity in Athletics Data Analysis (EADA) reports, and acting as liaison between Athletics and the Offices of Admissions and Student Affairs.

“I have big shoes to fill with the retirement announcement of Coach Currey,” said Boesel. “I take on this challenge having had the advantage of his mentoring for the past nine years and welcome this opportunity to build on the foundation of his 25 years of experience.”

An athletic family, the Boesels have two daughters: Brittany, who just completed a four-year softball career at DePaul University in Chicago and will be attending Chapman’s Doctor of Physical Therapy program in the fall; and Mackenzie, a junior at Orange Lutheran High School, who has committed to the University of South Carolina on a softball scholarship.

by Doug Aiken
Sports Information Director

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