Photo by Christina VanHorn,
UNH Human Resources

When you watch a men’s ice hockey game (or any other sport at UNH), you may not even think about the fact that all the student-athletes on the ice are academically eligible, that their athletics scholarships are limited by numerous NCAA rules, that the students, coaches and boosters are provided with education about abiding by NCAA rules, and that the men’s and women’s teams are treated equitably. But Carrie Doyle thinks about these things, since her primary responsibilities involve eligibility certification, athletically related financial aid, education and monitoring of NCAA rules, and Title IX/gender equity issues. In fact, when she wakes up in the middle of the night, it’s usually because she has suddenly realized that a transfer student may not be eligible, or a student-athlete may be financially over-awarded, or the interpretation of an NCAA rule she provided to a coach the day before was incomplete, or worse, incorrect.

Prior to starting her work at UNH in July of 2004 as an Associate Director of Athletics for NCAA Compliance, Doyle worked for the NCAA national office for 12 years as an investigator in the enforcement department and as the Director of Student-Athlete Reinstatement. She was promoted to a Senior Associate Director of Athletics at UNH last year. Doyle supervises the process that determines whether 525 student-athletes in 20 sports are eligible for practice and competition, and is responsible for the administration of $6.6 million dollars of athletics scholarships for approximately 300 of those student-athletes. She works to educate student-athletes, coaches, staff and boosters about the 400+ page NCAA manual and the many, many ways in which they can violate NCAA rules. When violations do occur, Doyle’s responsibility is to investigate the situation and self-report the findings to the NCAA. Doyle is responsible for the department’s compliance with Title IX issues, which is a federal law that deals with whether men’s and women’s teams are treated equitably in terms of uniforms, travel, locker rooms, facilities, marketing and promotions, scholarship dollars, media relations, coaches, etc. “The university is now able to boast that after spending approximately $300,000 more scholarship dollars on women student-athletes over the course of the last 3 years, it is now substantially in compliance with Title IX,” said Doyle.

Doyle grew up in Vestal, New York, went to Cortland State for her undergraduate work, moved to Iowa City, Iowa for graduate school at the University of Iowa, then moved to Kansas City, Missouri to work for the NCAA national office. When Doyle saw the advertisement in The NCAA News for this position, after having spent 17 years in Kansas City, she became very excited about the opportunity. “I remember thinking the responsibilities sounded substantive and interesting, the university has a very good academic reputation, and it was in a physically beautiful part of the country,” said Doyle. “I had never been to the state of New Hampshire before, but once I interviewed and met the people, I had no doubt this was where I wanted to be.”

She describes her position as one that provides service, and said that a person who has her job has to be a multi-tasker. While she emphasizes how different the job is every day, she also emphasizes the importance of having fun on the job. “You have to want to help coaches, staff, and student-athletes solve their problems and answer the questions they bring to you,” said Doyle. “And you absolutely have to have a sense of humor. If we’re not laughing about something at least once a day, then it’s been a bad day.”

While Doyle relishes the opportunity to help coaches and student-athletes solve their problems, she said that the most satisfying aspect of her job is the people she gets to work with. “Our coaches, staff and student-athletes are amazing people, and I feel privileged to work with all of them. They all have a mindset of trying to do the ‘right thing,’ which makes a compliance person’s job a lot easier!”

Outside of work Doyle enjoys working on graphic design projects using Photoshop and InDesign. She also enjoys traveling to the White Mountains, the coast of Maine and other east coast locations to shoot landscape photos, along with jogging, biking and playing with her two Bichon Frise dogs.