Harry Sheehy will retire this month after 45 years in competitive and college sports, including more than a decade as Dartmouth’s director of athletics and recreation, Dartmouth announced today.
During Sheehy’s tenure, Dartmouth brought home 27 Ivy League and three national championships, built the Indoor Practice Facility, and oversaw upgrades and renovations at Memorial Field, the squash courts, the rowing boathouse, softball park, and a number of other athletic facilities. He instituted Dartmouth Peak Performance (DP2), an initiative designed to help student-athletes achieve their highest levels of physical, intellectual, and personal growth. Working with the Advancement division, Sheehy founded the Dartmouth Athletics Advisory Board (DAAB) in 2011, and helped raise $29.5 million to endow 16 athletics positions, 14 of which are coaches.
Sheehy played competitive basketball for eight years after graduating in 1975 from Williams College, where he went on to coach the sport and serve as its athletics director. He joined Dartmouth in 2010.
“So much has been accomplished by Dartmouth Athletics under Harry’s leadership,” says President Philip J. Hanlon ’77. “He has overseen important expansions and renovations of our facilities, launched the visionary DP2 program, and helped raise endowments to support a broad range of our teams. I thank him for his dedication and wish him all the best in retirement.”
Dartmouth has ranked among the top schools in the nation for the graduation success rate (GSR) of its student-athletes. In the 10 years that the Ivy League has been included in the NCAA’s GSR ranking, Dartmouth has been ranked first in the nation six times and in the top three all 10 years.
“I very much appreciate the emphasis Harry has always placed on the academic achievement of our student-athletes and the principle that first and foremost they are students,” says President Hanlon.
Says Sheehy, “I have been honored to serve Dartmouth athletics and would like to thank our student-athletes and alumni, DAAB, Dartmouth’s senior leadership group, the department’s senior leadership team, and all those who have supported our mission—within our department, across campus, and beyond. Finally, I offer my heartfelt thanks to an extraordinary group of coaches, and I look forward to following their future success.”
DAAB Chair Tracy Hagan Mallory ’92 says the board thanks Sheehy for his contributions to Dartmouth athletics, its coaches, and student-athletes, and wishes Sheehy and his wife, Connie, “all the best in their next chapter.”
“Harry has been a passionate and impactful leader at Dartmouth for the last 10 years. His leadership and commitment to the program will be missed,” she says.
Interim AD Has Dartmouth Roots
Hanlon has named Peter Roby ’79 interim athletics director beginning Feb. 16. Roby will serve through June 2022.
He was co-captain of Dartmouth’s men’s basketball team as a senior and began his coaching career with a season spent as an assistant men’s basketball coach at Dartmouth.
Roby served from 2007-2010 as an at-large representative on the Dartmouth Alumni Council, and has been a secretary of his class and a longtime Dartmouth College Fund volunteer.
“Peter Roby is a highly respected leader in intercollegiate athletics. We look forward to welcoming him back to Dartmouth,” says Hanlon.
Roby led athletics at Division I Northeastern for more than 10 years, through 2017, after spending five years as director of the university’s Center for the Study of Sport in Society, which seeks to create social change using the influence and appeal of sports. He is a former member of the NCAA D-I Men’s Basketball Committee, which selects and seeds the annual NCAA tournament field, and has worked as a strategic consultant to the NCAA, including in its leadership development programs.
“I’m honored and humbled to be asked to serve the College and will do all I can to bring our athletics community together,” says Roby.
He was the men’s basketball coach at Harvard for six seasons, after three years as an assistant coach. In addition to his assistant coaching stint at Dartmouth, Roby was an assistant men’s basketball coach at Stanford and at the U.S. Military Academy.
He is a member of the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics, created in 1989 by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, which works to develop and lead change that prioritizes the education, health, safety, and success of student-athletes. In addition to his work in athletics, Roby spent several years in marketing at Reebok, including three years as the athletic outfitter’s vice president of U.S. marketing. A government major at Dartmouth, Roby has a master’s degree in leadership from Northeastern.
