Longtime athletic administrator Dee Nichols became Presbyterian College’s Director of Athletics in August of 2023.
In her time as Presbyterian’s Director of Athletics, the Blue Hose have captured conference championships in women’s basketball and baseball. The women’s basketball team, after winning the Big South Tournament title for the first time in school history in 2024, went on to win an NCAA Tournament game. The women’s wrestling program won the Southeast Region Team Championships in 2025 and followed that up by finishing sixth in the National Tournament while having numerous wrestlers earn All-American honors over the last couple of years. Men’s golfer Jeep Patrick became the first player in the program’s history to win the Big South Championship Individual title when he accomplished that feat while helping lead the Blue Hose to Big South Championship Match Play for the first time in school history in 2025.
Nichols joined the PC Department of Athletics in 2009 as assistant athletic director and quickly established herself as a leader within the program and across campus. An instrumental part of the department’s operations, Nichols has served various stints supervising athletic offices responsible for NCAA compliance, scholarships, programming, and facilities operations, in addition to serving as the department’s senior women’s administrator and, for a period, as interim AD.
Nichols played an integral role in several influential periods in the department’s history, including the Division I transition, the addition of four varsity sports, assisting with an $8 million campaign to fund new athletic facilities, and serving as an adviser on the design of three new athletic facilities.
Over the past 15 years, Nichols has grown the department’s first NCAA Division I compliance program, focusing on education and monitoring. She aided in the creation and development of the academic services position to provide resources to student-athletes.
During her tenure, Nichols has held titles of assistant athletic director (2009-12), associate athletic director (2012-15), senior associate athletic director (2015-19), and interim athletic director (April to August 2019), as well as the senior woman administrator role she was appointed to in 2010.
She has held numerous other leadership positions on campus, from her post on the Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Council, as adviser to the Student-Athlete Advisory Council, and as the athletic department’s liaison to campus departments, including Residential Life, Financial Aid, Conduct, and Title IX.
Nichols was also named an Honorary Alumna of PC in 2020.
A 1991 graduate of Georgia Southern University with a Bachelor of Health and Physical Education, Nichols earned her master’s degree in physical education from GSU in 1992. As a student, she was a four-year starter on the Eagles volleyball team.
Nichols began her professional career in intercollegiate athletics as an assistant volleyball coach at GSU in 1992. She served as head volleyball coach for her alma mater from 1994-97 before switching to women’s basketball as a recruiting coordinator. Before joining PC’s athletics staff, Nichols was the assistant compliance director at the University of Rhode Island.
Nichols resides in Clinton with her husband, Harold, a 1989 PC graduate. They have three children – Cassie, a 2020 PC graduate, Cameron, and Corey.
