Richard Sander, Ed.D.
Director for the Center for Global Sport Leadership, Executive in Residence – Assistant to the President
Dr. Richard Sander, Director for the Center for Global Sport Leadership and Executive in Residence – Assistant to the President. He led Virginia Commonwealth’s athletic program for 20 years and was Director of Intercollegiate Athletics at ETSU from 2013-2017. Sander began his career as head basketball coach at Howard High School in Chattanooga and later as an assistant at the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga. In 1972, he moved to Cincinnati to serve as head basketball coach at Anderson High School, until 1982 when he became Assistant Athletic Director at Memphis State University (now The University of Memphis). In 1986, he left Memphis to take the AD job at VCU. His duties expanded in 1994 when he assumed the title of Assistant to the President and Director of Athletics. In 1999, he added the title Executive Director of the VCU Sports Center. Sander earned a B.S. in Business Administration from the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga in 1968. He received a M.S. in Physical Education from Xavier University in 1974, and a Ph.D. in Education from the University of Cincinnati in 1980. Sander and his wife, Mary, have a daughter, Leslie, and son, Jim, and grandchildren Jack Winston, Finnegan and Fontaine Sander.