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Former National Athletics Director of the Year Eric Hyman is in his third year as the director of athletics at the University of South Carolina. Regarded as an architect of championship programs, an advocate for academic success and a skilled administrator, Hyman officially began his duties at South Carolina on July 1, 2005.
Under Hyman's leadership, the South Carolina Athletics Department completed another successful campaign both on and off the field in 2006-07. South Carolina was the only school in the Southeastern Conference and one of only five schools in the country to send both its baseball and softball teams to the Super Regionals. The Gamecocks won a Liberty Bowl championship in football and had nationally-ranked teams in baseball, softball, men's soccer, indoor men's track & field and indoor & outdoor women's track & field. The Gamecocks also reached the postseason in women's basketball, men's and women's golf, men's outdoor track & field, women's tennis and men's and women's swimming & diving, and captured a national championship in equestrian. Off the field, South Carolina student-athletes combined to surpass the 3.0 grade point average plateau for the first time in department history.
In addition, Hyman unveiled a $200 million master plan of facilities and embarked on the school's first athletics capital campaign. The early phases of the master plan include the erection of a state-of-the-art baseball stadium (the fourth baseball construction project in his career), an academic enrichment center, an athletics training room and the enclosure of the north end zone at Williams-Brice Stadium.
During the 2005-06 academic year, South Carolina was one of only 11 schools in the country and the only school in the SEC to have its football team participate in a bowl game, have both its men's and women's basketball programs compete in postseason tournaments and have its baseball squad reach regional play. In addition, the women's outdoor track & field team finished third in the country while crowning a pair of individual national champions and the equestrian hunt seat squad claimed a national title. Men's soccer earned a conference title while both men's and women's golf and tennis teams advanced to postseason action.
Hyman came to South Carolina from Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas, where he served as the athletics director for over seven years. He was named the 2003-04 Street and Smith's Business Journal National Athletics Director of the Year and was also selected as the Division I-A West Regional Athletics Director of the Year by the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA).
Under his leadership, TCU teams recorded 32 conference titles and consistently posted a graduation percentage rate higher than that of the overall student body. Hyman was instrumental in orchestrating TCU's invitation to join Conference USA in July 2001 and spearheaded the effort for the Horned Frogs to join the Mountain West Conference in July 2005, moving the program from its affiliation with the Western Athletic Conference when Hyman arrived in December 1997.
During Hyman's tenure, the TCU football team went to six bowl games in seven seasons, boasted a Heisman Trophy candidate in LaDainian Tomlinson and was ranked as high as sixth in the BCS polls; the women's basketball team went to five straight NCAA Tournaments; the baseball team earned back-to-back regional appearances for the first time in school history; and the men's indoor & outdoor track & field and men's tennis teams finished seasons ranked among the top five in the nation. In the 2000-01 school year, TCU teams turned in the best athletics record in school history, registering eight WAC championships and fielding seven nationally-ranked teams. TCU was one of only four schools that season to record 10 victories in football and 20 wins in both men's and women's basketball, while setting a school record for football season tickets sold.
He helped raise over $30 million in facility improvements and directed a three-phase building plan that included the construction of a soccer stadium, a track complex and football practice fields during the first phase, renovations to the coliseum and the construction of an athletics center housing the football offices and meeting rooms, an academic center, athletic administration offices and an athletics heritage area in the second phase, and the construction of a baseball stadium, basketball practice complex, tennis offices and locker room building, an all-weather football practice field and a volleyball gymnasium in the final phase.
Prior to his stint in Fort Worth, Hyman was the athletics director at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. During his tenure, Miami had the fifth-highest student-athlete graduation rate among all NCAA Division I schools in the country. His last two years at Miami brought home 10 conference championships. Hyman also served as athletics director at VMI in Lexington, Va., in the 1980s.
No stranger to the Carolinas, Hyman coached football for nine years under Art Baker and Dick Sheridan, and was an associate athletics director for two years at Furman University, where he earned a master's degree in educational administration (1975). He and his wife, Pauline, coached the women's basketball team at North Greenville University in Tigerville, S.C., leading the team to national rankings in the '70s.
Hyman played football at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was an All-ACC football player, on the Dean's List and selected for the Hula Bowl. He also served as the executive associate athletics director at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, N.C., in the early 1990s.
His wife, Pauline, is a native of North Carolina and also graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Prior to her arrival at UNC, she played and later coached women's college basketball, taught sociology and psychology, and served as a college administrator. Pauline developed and taught the NCAA CHAMPS Life Skills course and various seminars for student-athletes at both Miami University and TCU. Since coming to South Carolina, she has taught the Etiquette Seminar in the Gamecocks' CHAMPS Life Skills course and assists with other seminars in preparing the student-athletes for their futures, such as the Dress for Success and Networking and Interviewing seminars.
The Hymans have two adult children: Ryan, who graduated from TCU in 2001 and Corrine, a 2004 graduate of TCU. Ryan works for Roach, Howard, Smith and Barton Insurance Company in Fort Worth and Corrine is a realtor with Williams Trew Real Estate in Fort Worth.
