Ranking all five Tennessee Vols athletic directors by performance in 2010s decade

2. Joan Cronan; 2011

She was only the interim athletic director for the Tennessee Vols, between Mike Hamilton and Dave Hart. And when it comes to the overall program, Joan Cronan is the greatest athletic director in UT history. After all, Cronan oversaw all the success of the women’s basketball program, and she built up other programs as well. However, almost all of that was in previous decades.

But during her short tenure with Rocky Top this decade, she oversaw two key things. One was a failure, like all the other athletic directors, and the other was a success. Combine that with her overall success, and she clearly belongs above the other people on this list. Her positives far outweigh her negatives. She is arguably the greatest women’s AD in history.

The failure of Cronan was hiring Dave Serrano to lead the baseball program. However, like Hart hiring Holly Warlick, we can’t really criticize that hire. On its face, there was nothing wrong with it, as Serrano had been to six straight NCAA Tournaments at two different schools, and he led each of those schools to the College World Series.

Meanwhile, the positive was overseeing the merger of the men’s and women’s athletic departments. That was not an easy thing to do. So Cronan’s ability to do that cancels out the mistake with Serrano, and the mistake with Serrano only comes with the benefit of hindsight. With a net zero and limited time, though, we have her at No. 2 for the 2010s.