On Wednesday, Guilford College President Jane Fernandes announced Nelson Bobb as the Interim Director of Athletics at a press conference on campus.

“As we transition to a single full-time athletic director, Guilford College is in great hands,” said Fernandes. “We’re truly blessed to have a unique opportunity to add a local and highly accomplished administrator to our team.”

           Bobb was the athletics director for University of North Carolina-Greensboro from 1983 to 2009 and transformed the college from a Division III to a Division I program. He facilitated this transition in five years, the shortest time for any college to change.

In 2008, Bobb was inducted into the UNC-Greensboro Athletics Hall of Fame and into the Guilford County Sports Hall of Fame in 2009. He was the recipient of the 2016 Division I-AAA ADA Gary Cunningham Lifetime Achievement Award.

           Bobb is from Gahanna, Ohio and got his undergraduate and master’s degrees from Kent State University.  At Kent State, he played on the football team and later was the assistant football coach and assistant athletic director for Cornell University.

           Bobb will be in charge of a year-long leadership transition. He takes over for Tom Palombo, who was the athletics director and is the men’s basketball head coach. Palombo will continue to coach the men’s basketball team at Guilford.

While Bobb is only planned to be at Guilford for a year he still wants to improve image of  the student athletes on campus.

“We as student athletes as a population that is that strong, some 400, we need to engage ourselves not only in our own sports and support other sports but we need engage ourselves in what others students on campus are doing,” said Nelson Bobb.