PULLMAN — Anne McCoy has served the past three months as interim director of athletics at Washington State University. On Tuesday, WSU president Kirk Schulz rewarded her with the job on a permanent basis.
McCoy, 56, replaces Pat Chun, who left for rival Washington in late March, and becomes the first woman to hold the position of WSU athletic director.
“Washington State University is an amazing and special place that has been a huge part of our family for over 23 years,” McCoy said in a news release. “It is home.”
McCoy told The Spokesman-Review in late May she expected WSU to name a permanent athletic director in the fall. But she made it clear she was a candidate, and Schulz — who at the time of Chun’s departure said WSU would conduct a national search for his replacement — went with the in-house option.
Since replacing Chun as interim AD, McCoy has hired men’s basketball coach David Riley, swimming coach Russ Whitaker and women’s golf coach Kevin Tucker. McCoy also extended the contract of women’s basketball coach Kamie Ethridge, secured a home for WSU’s baseball and women’s swimming teams through affiliate membership with the Mountain West Conference for the 2024-25 and 2025-26 seasons, and helped the Pac-12 Conference secure a media rights agreement with the CW Network and FOX for the 2024 football season.
A first-time athletic director, McCoy is no stranger to WSU, serving a variety of roles on the senior administrative team since arriving in 2001 as associate director of athletics for internal operations. McCoy, who was hired by former WSU athletic director Jim Sterk, has risen within the athletic department. Most recently, she served as senior deputy director of athletics and senior woman administrator before assuming the interim director of athletics title in March.
Now, McCoy fully assumes the task of leading Washington State into a new era. WSU and Oregon State, the two holdovers in the Pac-12 since news came of its dissolution, are using a two-year grace period allowed by the NCAA to attempt to rebuild the conference. Last fall, the schools won a lawsuit that granted them the conference’s assets.
“Serving this institution with its tremendous history is an honor and one I don’t take lightly,” she said. “I’d like to thank President Schulz and the Board of Regents for entrusting me to lead this talented group of coaches, staff and student-athletes. It is an opportunity unmatched anywhere in the country and there is no place I would rather be than WSU.”
Pac-12 Commissioner Teresa Gould said in a news release that there’s “no one more equipped to provide Washington State with the leadership necessary to navigate the changing landscape of college athletics.
“I have had the pleasure of knowing Anne for nearly 25 years and have witnessed firsthand her passion for delivering a quality student-athlete experience and building nationally-competitive programs. Her long-standing tenure with WSU puts her in a unique position to make an immediate impact and build upon the impressive track record of success she has already demonstrated on the Palouse.”
Across her past 23 years at WSU, McCoy has worked in all types of capacities in the athletics front office, including as the department’s liaison to the Pac-12 men’s and women’s swimming and diving coaches, vice president of the Pac-12 Executive Committee and in a spot on the Pac-12 Women’s Basketball Tournament and Nominating Committees, the Pac-12 Diversity Leadership Initiative and the Pac-10 Senior Woman Administrator and Television committees .
Before her time at Washington State, McCoy spent five years at Portland State, where she began in 1996 as associate director of athletics and senior woman administrator. Two years later, she was promoted to senior associate director of athletics, supervising men’s and women’s golf, cross country/track and field, women’s volleyball, soccer, tennis and softball.
A Wisconsin native, McCoy earned a bachelor’s degree in sports management in 1989 from the University of Massachusetts. She and her husband, Brian, have two children, daughter Taylor and son Jake. Taylor is a former swimmer at WSU, and Jake has committed to swim at Tennessee in the fall of 2025.
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