After three decades on the job, long time Tennessee women’s athletic director Joan Cronan is in her final few days on Rocky Top. Last week the school announced it would be naming the soon to be completed volleyball practice facility in her honor.

Cronan was the UT women’s basketball coach from 1968 to 1970. She moved on to lead the athletic department of College of Charleston, growing the school into the top women’s athletics program in the country at the time according to the American Women’s Sports Foundation. She also served a stint as their volleyball coach. She came back to Knoxville to lead Tennessee’s women’s athletics in the 1980s, and helped turn the Lady Vols into the most respected program in the nation. In 2011, she was named the interim UT athletic director for both men and women, making her the first woman in SEC history to oversee an entire athletics department.

The Daily Beacon spoke with junior Kalyn Helton: “This is another step up for our volleyball program and we are honored for our new practice facility to be named after someone who has had such a great impact in women’s sports… This new practice facility marks a new era in Tennessee Volleyball.”