Rutgers' Julie Hermann joins short list of female FBS ADs

Hermann is the first female athletic director in Rutgers history, and will be only the third in major college athletics.

By Peter Berkes May 15, 2013, 3:02pm EDT

Rutgers has hired Julie Hermann as its new athletic director, according to Tom Luicci of the Newark Star-Ledger. Hermann moves to Piscataway from Louisville, where she served as the top assistant to athletic director Tom Jurich.

More: Rutgers blog On The Banks

She will be the first female athletic director in school history, and is only the third female athletic director in major college athletics behind N.C. State's Debbie Yow and Cal's Sandy Barbour. She narrowly beat out Wisconsin deputy athletic director Sean Frazier for the job.

Serving as the associate athletic director at Louisville, Hermann oversaw 20 of the school's 23 varsity sports, but football was not one of them. Prior to her stay at Louisville, she served as the head volleyball coach at Tennessee. She played volleyball at and graduated from Nebraska.

Hermann takes over for Tim Pernetti, who resigned back in April after being caught up in the scandal surrounding basketball coach Mike Rice. Rice was caught on video being physically and verbally abusive to players, and it came out that Pernetti did not immediately fire Rice after seeing the tapes.