Maisha Kelly

Maisha Kelly was appointed Drexel’s Director of Athletics on June 16, 2021. Kelly, a native of Philadelphia, returned to the city after serving as Bucknell University’s senior associate director of athletics and senior woman administrator. She was promoted to Vice President, Director of Athletics and Recreation, during the summer of 2024.

Kelly has made an impact on the Drexel Athletics community. Through her leadership, Drexel enhanced the Daskalakis Athletic Center with a multi-million dollar renovation that included a new video board, sound and lighting among multiple improvements. The result was the Inquirer naming the DAC “one of the premier sports venues in the city.”

The 2023-24 basketball season was a historic one. Kelly was instrumental in Drexel’s inclusion into the heralded Philadelphia Big 5 for both men’s and women’s basketball. The men competed for a Big 5 Championship for the first time ever in December of 2023 and defeated nationally-ranked Villanova at the Wells Fargo Center. The women begin Big 5 play during the 2023-24 season.

In her first three seasons at Drexel, the Dragons had had at least one NCAA participant in each academic year. In 2023-24, the women’s basketball team won the CAA Championship for the third time in school history. The women’s lacrosse team earned an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament. Women’s lacrosse has now made the NCAA’s in four straight seasons, the first team in Drexel history to accomplish that feat. The women’s rowing Varsity 8+ team became the first in program history to qualify for the Island Challenge Cup at the Henley Royal Regatta in Henley-on-Thames, England.

In her first two seasons at the school, Kelly saw the women’s basketball team win back-to-back regular season CAA Championships and advance to the third round of the 2022 WNIT. All three CAA fall sports teams won a contest in their respective postseason tournaments, with the field hockey team reaching the title game in 2022. It was the first time the Dragons reached the fall championships in all three sports in the same season.

Off the field, Drexel had had two CAA nominees for the NCAA Woman of the Year. The Dragons have had three Academic All-Americans, including two in 2023, marking the first time since 2006 that multiple student-athletes were recognized. The wrestling team earned the top grade-point average in the nation and nine Drexel teams received the CAA Team Academic Award in her first three seasons. This past season, Drexel had eight of its teams record a perfect score on the 2022-23 Academic Progress Rate. Drexel has had at least seven of its teams score 100 percent on the Graduation Success Rate (GSR) since her arrival. Overall, Drexel Athletics scored 94 percent on the latest GSR.

Kelly has also expanded the department’s organizational structure. She hired a Chief of Staff, whose role is committed to facilitating the development of a strategic plan and ongoing attention to that work throughout the year. Additionally, this role is focused on governance issues internal to the University and the national landscape of intercollegiate athletics. Kelly also hired an Assistant Athletic Director for Student-Athlete Development. This individual is responsible for developing a framework of programming and partnerships that builds skills for students to execute leadership, personal and professional growth during their time at Drexel and for success after graduation. This position further equips the department to commit to Drexel’s DEI efforts and community engagement.

Under Kelly’s guidance, Drexel has increased its annual giving and has seen the endowment of both the women’s coaching position and the basketball court through named gifts. She has also overseen the reimagining of external relations in the department. Through Kelly’s leadership Drexe Athletics has renewed its relationship with Nike in an expanded contract which provides for all 18 varsity programs.

The department successfully hosted the 2023 and 2024 NCAA Men’s Lacrosse Championships at Lincoln Financial Field. Drexel will co-host the 2025 NCAA Wrestling Championships at the Wells Fargo Center this upcoming March.

Kelly came to Drexel after a decade-long tenure at Bucknell. Her administrative role at Bucknell included sport oversight responsibilities, along with serving as the athletic department’s liaison to key areas across campus. Kelly spearheaded the department’s long-range planning played an active role on the President’s Diversity Council. Kelly created the athletic department’s first student-athlete leadership development program — the Bucknell Athletics Leadership Institute — in 2011, and organized the implementation of the Bucknell Athletics Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Council, comprised of administrators, coaches and student-athletes.

In 2019, Kelly’s primary role shifted to development and fundraising, where she focused on increasing annual support for the Bison Club and spearheading the fundraising efforts for major capital projects related to Bison Athletics. In 2021, she coordinated a 24-hour giving challenge that netted more than $1 million. In addition, she was the fundraising project manager for a $10 million transformational facility enhancement of Bucknell’s historic Christy Mathewson Memorial Stadium.

Kelly held a number of committee roles within the NCAA Governance structure, including being a member of the NCAA Division I Council. the NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Oversight Committee, the Division I Nominating Committee and the NCAA Division I Track and Field Committee, where she was appointed Chair in her final year of service. Kelly is a 2019 graduate of the NCAA Pathway Program.

Kelly’s previous posts included a position at the NCAA headquarters in Indianapolis, where she served as an assistant director of championships and was the NCAA’s representative on the USA Swimming and USA Diving Board of Directors.

Kelly’s rise in intercollegiate athletics administration came by way of student development positions at Rutgers University and Vanderbilt University after serving as a sixth grade classroom teacher for four years and an assistant track and field coach at her alma mater Saint Joseph’s University.

Kelly is a 2000 graduate of Saint Joseph’s University, where she captained the track and field team and earned an NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship. Kelly received her master’s of education degree in sport and recreation administration from Temple University.

Kelly is a member of the Women Leaders in College Sports Executive Institute and a graduate of the NCAA Leadership Institute for Ethnic and Minority Females. Kelly and her husband, Kevin, an assistant track and field coach at Temple University, have two children, Gregory and Kennedy.