B
y age 21, Renee Baumgartner had already decided she wanted to be an athletic administrator at the collegiate level. Since then, she has been driven by a desire to enhance the lives of student athletes and improve the state of women’s athletics.
“I look at myself as someone who is a change agent,” she said.
Renee Baumgartner
SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY
Baumgartner has forged a 30-year career at three of the nation’s most prominent institutions: USC (her alma mater), Oregon and Syracuse. As Syracuse’s deputy athletic director and chief of staff, she is responsible for fundraising, marketing, ticketing, sports information and corporate sponsorship. But that’s just her day job.
In what she calls her “spare time,” Baumgartner serves as president of the National Collegiate Acrobatics and Tumbling Association, working to pave the way for a potential 8.3 million female athletes by championing a new sport. USA Gymnastics has accepted acrobatics and tumbling as a discipline, and 11 schools from Division I through Division III are fielding teams, but the sport has yet to be recognized by the NCAA.
“I feel like I’m back in the ’70s trying to fight for women’s athletics,” Baumgartner said. “When you have 40 to 60 participants and 12 scholarships, it’s a sport that isn’t going to move the needle a little bit. It’s going to move it a lot.”
— Alex Silverman
