Sitting Down with Concordia’s Interim Athletics Director D’Arcy Ryan

Recreation and Athletics Department Undergoing Review by Concordia

SportsVince Morello — Published September 18, 2017

After his departure, the search for Concordia’s new athletics director has continued. But since January 2017, D’Arcy Ryan, the interim athletics director, has been quietly working to improve the Stingers brand around the school and the city.

Ryan, the director of Concordia’s residence administration, was chosen as the interim athletics director simply because both he and Boivin reported to Lisa Ostiguy, the head of student services.

“[Ostiguy] happened to reach out to myself because she knew that I’d done a lot of collaborative work with [recreations and athletics],” Ryan said. “[It made for] an easier transition for me to step in just because of the direct reporting aspect already set up within the team.”

He’s also familiar with the Stingers family as he was a part of the men’s rugby squad when he was a student at Concordia.

Ryan did not leave his position as director of Concordia’s resident administration to be appointed as the interim athletics director. He admits that if he didn’t have a great team in residence life, doing both jobs would be extremely difficult.

Despite the two jobs, Ryan has been busy at work. The Stingers have implemented an eligibility checker within the Student Information System, and they have given Stinger fans the option to buy tickets online.

“We can try and prevent lineups at any of the Stinger events, and sort of becoming a modern university,” Ryan said. “We’re trying to reduce ticket kiosks and get people to purchase with their mobile device.”

The biggest change within the recreation and athletics department is something that Ryan has almost nothing to do with. Following Boivin’s departure, Concordia decided to review the structure of the department. John Bower, the former assistant athletics director at Concordia, was the first casualty of the review. His job was terminated in January 2017.

A review of the recreation and athletics department hadn’t been done in about nine years, according to Ryan. Therefore with a significant change in the student body since then, Ostiguy decided to review the department now.

“The review process was very comprehensive so it included all internal staff, students, athletes as well as an external reviewer,” Ryan said.

“The people working the department know that change needs to happen in order for the department to be successful and for the student experience to be successful so no one is turning a blind eye to this,” he continued.