News

Cape Cod, Mass. - Commissioner of the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) Rudy Keeling and President of the ECAC Board of Directors Dan Mara announced the appointment of Dianthia Ford-Kee from Lincoln University to the ECAC Board of Directors.  Ford-Kee will serve a four-year term, expiring in the fall of 2013 at the annual ECAC Convention and Trade Show.

Ford-Kee enters her second year as Director of Athletics at Lincoln University of Pennsylvania. She comes to Lincoln from Shaw University where she spent the last 18 years working in administration and coaching. At Shaw, Ford-Kee's responsibilities included financial planning and budgeting, special events planning, contract negotiations, compliance, and serving as representative to University committees and community activities.  She also served as the advisor to the Student Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) and liaison to the University Gender Equity Committee.

Ford-Lee was named the National Association of Collegiate Women Athletic Administrators (NACWAA) NCAA Division II Female Athletic Administrator of the Year in 2006. She served as Shaw's Associate Athletics Director and Senior Woman Admin istrator for the last four years of her time there.

Ford-Kee served on NCAA Division II Management Council as the CIAA Conference representative from 1999-2005. She was also a member on several national committees including the Committee on Women's Athletics, Division II Nominating Committee, and NCAA Woman of the Year.  She currently serves on the NCAA Division II Diversity Project Team and the NCAA Division II Strategic Alliance Matching Grant Selection Committee.

Ford-Kee also taught public administration courses at Shaw for 10 years.  In addition, she was an accomplished coach, leaving quite a legacy at Shaw during her 14 years of guiding the softball and volleyball teams. Shaw won the CIAA softball championship three times (1994, 1996 and 2003). Ford-Kee was named CIAA softball coach of the Year in 1993, 1994, 1996 and 2003. 

Ford-Kee's volleyball teams played for the conference championship four times, winning the 1995 CIAA volleyball championship. Ford-Kee was a two-time CIAA volleyball coach of the Year (1995 and 2001). Since the conference realignment in 1997, the Lady Bears won the Eastern Division championship five times and shared the divisional championship in 1998.  Under Ford-Kee, Shaw compiled an overall Eastern Division record of 57-3, a conference mark of 203-66 and an overall record of 247-158.

Ford-Kee has received several honors from the state of North Carolina. She was a 1998 inductee in the Wake County Academy for Women for Athletics and a 1999 nominee of the Governor's Distinguished Woman Award for Athletics.  This September, she was inducted into the inaugural class of Lawrence High School's Athletic Hall of Fame in September as the first athlete in the history of the high school to score over 1000 points playing only three years of high school basketball.  She currently holds basketball records that have not been broken at Lawrence High School in Lawrenceville, New Jersey in its 40 years of existence.

She earned her bachelor of arts degree in business administration from Fayetteville State University in 1982 and a master's degree in public affairs from Northern Illinois University in 1984.

About the ECAC®
The ECAC is the nation's largest athletic and the only multi-divisional conference in the country with approximately 300 Division I, II, and III colleges and universities. The ECAC membership covers 16 states and stretches from Maine to North Carolina and westerly to Illinois. Established in 1938, the ECAC, a non-profit service organization, sponsors nearly 100 championships in 37 men's and women's sports and assigns more than 4,400 officials in 12 sports. The ECAC also administers nine affiliate sports organizations and six playing leagues. Through the public relations arm of the conference, more than 2,000 student-athletes are recognized. Finally, the ECAC serves as the primary conference for select members in the sports of men's ice hockey, women's ice hockey, and men's lacrosse