Ryan Pisarri has been named director of athletics at Tufts University. Currently the interim athletics director at Rutgers University, he will start on August 1.

Pisarri has been with Rutgers athletics administration since 2011, most recently serving as deputy athletic director for competitive excellence and chief of staff before being appointed in August 2024 as interim athletic director. As head of Rutgers athletics, he oversees 24 programs with some 800 student-athletes and more than 300 staff members. He also experienced collegiate athletics as a student-athlete, playing football at the University of Pennsylvania.

“Ryan impressed everyone he met with during the process and came across as a leader who will work closely with our student-athletes, faculty, coaches, and staff to ensure that our excellence in athletics at all levels, together with a commitment to excellence in the classroom, will continue and grow,” said Tufts President Sunil Kumar. “I am confident that Ryan can build on our already successful athletics program by focusing on a winning culture and by fostering close relationships between athletics, the rest of the institution, and our deeply engaged alumni and supporters.”

The search committee was chaired by Ted Tye, A79, A06P, A13P, vice chair of the Board of Trustees and chair of the Athletics Board of Advisors and Marty Ray, vice president of strategic initiatives and chief of staff to the president. The committee included faculty, staff, members of the Athletics Board of Advisors, coaches, and student-athletes.

“We considered an impressive group of applicants from across the country, including many current athletic directors and senior deputies,” said Tye. “Ryan stood out based on his extensive experience, personal integrity, and ability to lead our program into the future.”

Other members of the search committee were likewise impressed. “Ryan is a people-focused leader,” said Courtney Shute, head coach of the women’s lacrosse team. “I am excited to welcome his positive approach and enthusiasm for high-academic student-athletes into our Jumbo family.”

“What I find most compelling about Ryan joining Tufts is his comprehensive understanding of the student-athlete experience,” said Jill D. Weinberg, associate professor of sociology. “While his professional career at Rutgers, a Division I university, is certainly impressive, his personal journey as an athlete at University of Pennsylvania offers invaluable insights. UPenn, like Tufts, excels at balancing high athletic achievement with rigorous academics, giving Ryan first-hand knowledge of the unique demands and holistic development of student-athletes.”

Pisarri “stood out among his peers as a passionate and proven leader,” said Sidney Wooten, A26, member of the men’s basketball team. “His background as a student-athlete at another prestigious university clearly informs his commitment to fostering an authentic and enriching experience for our student-athletes. While he will undoubtedly be a great athletics director at Tufts, he is already a great human being—and that is what matters most.”

Pisarri replaces John Morris, who had been athletics director for a decade before leaving earlier this year for other opportunities. Alexis Mastronardi, deputy director of athletics, has been serving as director of athletics ad interim. 

Tufts has one of the most successful athletics programs in the NCAA Division III. This past season, for example, the university ranked third nationally out more than 300 Division III schools in the Learfield Directors’ Cup, which measures colleges and universities with the most success in collegiate athletics.

‘We’ll All Be Working Together’

After college, Pisarri worked in financial services before joining the Department of Athletics at Rutgers, the state university of New Jersey, in 2011. By 2016 he was senior athletic associate director, directing sports administration for 24 programs. He was primary sports administrator for football, men’s basketball, baseball, and men’s golf. 

In 2022, he was promoted to deputy athletic director for competitive excellence, helping oversee and manage the athletics department’s day-to-day operations and end-of-year evaluations for all athletic programs, including head coach reviews. He led the implementation of new sports administration policies and procedures while continuing as primary sports administrator for his high-profile portfolio of sports and as a fundraising advisor. 

Along the way, he earned a master’s in education in 2021 and a master’s in business administration in 2024, both from Rutgers. 

Pisarri said he is excited to be coming to Tufts. “Tufts is an elite academic institution with high-level, incredibly competitive athletics, and a place where athletics is valued as part of the university community, which is a really important thing for me,” said Pisarri. 

The student-athlete experience is key to the success of the athletics program, he said. “The core mission for the student-athlete experience is making sure they’re supported in all facets of their life—academics, socially, and certainly in athletics,” he said. “We want our student-athletes to take advantage of everything Tufts has to offer, getting everything out of their academic experience and playing in the big games.” 

When he starts at Tufts next month, Pisarri said he plans to listen and learn. “I want people to learn about me, and I want to learn about them. I want to see how we continue the excellence in the classroom and on the playing fields,” he said. “I’m looking forward to learning more about all of the programs, meeting all of our coaches and teams, and getting a sense of what is the special sauce. I’m really excited about diving in as soon as I get up there.”

As a longtime New Jersey resident—he was born and raised in the Garden State—he was careful to say that he’s “not going to tell anybody which teams I root for.”

“I was a big sports fan growing up, loved watching the Boston-New York rivalry,” he said. “I’m looking forward to seeing it from a different perspective. Boston is such a great sports town. You just get chills when you think about all the great venues and all the great teams and all the great performances.” 

Working at Tufts, he said, will be “a collaborative thing. We’ll all be working together, and we’ll all be shoulder-by-shoulder and having a lot of fun together, winning a lot of games and making sure our student-athletes have a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”