For the third year in a row, there will be new leadership atop of the Colorado Mesa University (CMU) athletic department. Joan McDermott will be the interim director of athletics and will be joined by Oscar Ramirez, who was recently named the associate director of athletics.
Last year, Kimberley Miller was hired as the school’s athletic director (AD) but stepped down from the position in January to pursue opportunities closer to home. In March, McDermott was named the interim AD and still holds that title today.
McDermott is no stranger to the RMAC, or CMU. From 1998-2015 she was the AD at Metropolitan State University of Denver. As the AD there, she oversaw two NCAA men’s basketball championships and was named the Division II athletic director of the year twice.
“I always had the highest respect for Colorado Mesa”, McDermott said. “President Foster did an amazing job, then the previous ADs, they did an incredible job. For me to come here and now be a part of this, I’m in awe quite honestly, of how this whole program has gone.”
In McDermott’s most recent tenure, she was the AD at the University of San Francisco (USF), a Division I school. At USF, she led many operations, and most notably hired men’s basketball coach Todd Golden, who led the program to its first NCAA Tournament appearance in 24 years.
“That was my main goal, to get all of our programs going in the right direction, and of course, everything there with the tradition of men’s basketball and Bill Russell… It was pretty amazing,” McDermott said.
In division I athletics, the landscape is traditionally dominated by the “Power Five”, the five conferences with the high profile schools across the country. USF, like most other Division I schools, is considered a “mid-major college”.
When looking at the gap between mid-major division I and division II the gap may be closer than ever before.
“If you look at the power fives for division I, they’re in their own world. I would say half the schools in the West Coast Conference were very similar [to CMU] in terms of experience for student-athletes,” McDermott said. “These facilities here are the best I’ve ever been around. From the outside looking in, most people think DI DI DI, but that’s not the case. When you go mid to lower-level Division I versus high-level Division II, there’s a huge crossover.”
Joining McDermott will be Oscar Ramirez, who McDermott hired on June 21.
Ramirez is a former wrestler who began his career at Iowa Western Community College (IWCC). After finishing his career at Augustana University, he returned as a coach at IWCC.
Ramirez coached the men’s wrestling program, and began the women’s program, then realized he wanted to impact all the sports programs rather than one. A mentor then told Ramirez to become an administrator he would have to get a master’s degree.
“So COVID hit, and next thing you know I find myself bored,” Ramirez said. “I looked at my wife and I go, ‘I want to go back to school.’ I kid you not she went and got the computer, signed me up for classes, and that’s how I got my master’s degree from Buena Vista University in organizational leadership.”
After Ramirez got his master’s, IWCC hired a new school president, who was also the interim AD at the time. Ramirez reached out and offered his help to the athletic department, and walked out with the title of assistant athletic director.
Some would think the jump from community college to division II would be significant, however, IWCC isn’t a traditional community college. The school has over 20 sports programs and many of them are consistently making runs at junior college national championships.
“At the junior college level, half the team is gone every year, so it’s incredible to see the maturity of the juniors and seniors here…I would say the biggest difference is the size of the department. At IWCC Shane Larson (IWCC athletic director) and I would do everything. Here we have our own compliance officer, and it’s incredible to see them take stuff off our plate so we can be able to go out to meet sponsors and the student-athletes,” Ramirez said.
The pairing of McDermott and Ramirez seems to be an excellent fit for CMU. McDermott comes from an experienced background with a career full of superb achievements, while Ramirez comes from a high-level junior college that has a huge sports program like CMU.
The duo will be in pursuit of bringing CMU their first team sports NCAA Division II national championship in school history.
