Tennessee’s new volleyball practice facility is being named after former Lady Vols athletic director Joan Cronan, who spent three decades working for UT athletics.
The Board of Trusteesapproved the action on Thursday.
Construction of the Joan Cronan Volleyball Practice Facility began in February on the facility adjacent to Regal Soccer Stadium. It will be completed for the 2014 season.
The facility will feature three courts, a locker room and lounge, equipment room, film study room, and coaches’ offices.
Cronan, who will retire at the end of this month, was women’s athleticdirector for 28 years and served a three-month term as vice chancellor and director of athletics when the men’s and women’s departments merged in 2011.
For the last two years, Cronan served as “senior advisor to the chancellor” for UT Chancellor Jimmy Cheek. Her role essentially was diplomatic in nature.
“Obviously I take a lot of pride in the solid base that we’ve been able to build at the University of Tennessee in women’s athletics,”Cronan said in November of 2012.
An athlete during her time as a student at LSU, Cronan coached the Lady Vols from 1968-70. In 1969, she led the women’s basketball team to an alternate berth in the first women’s national invitational tournament in West Chester, Pa.
During her tenure at UT, the Lady Vols became one of the most visible and well-respected programs in the country.
An artist’s rendering of Tennessee’s new volleyball practice facility.
Courtesy of: News Sentinel staff
Publish by: Knoxville News Sentinel