2010 Women of Influence: Sandy Hatfield Clubb
Saturday, July 31, 2010 7:00 AM
After the Haiti earthquake, Drake University Director of Athletics Sandy Hatfield Clubb traveled with a group of Iowans representing Meals From the Heartland to the devastated country.
While there, she along with Drake women's basketball coach Amy Stephens held a basketball clinic for sixth-grade girls. That could have been the end.
But Hatfield Clubb, while not there physically, is still influencing.
She is a large reason why Drake is currently supporting a team in Haiti of 39 sixth-grade girls by sending basketballs, clothing and shoes for girls who mostly play barefoot or in flip-flops.
She is also one of the reasons why the Drake football team might be heading to Tanzania next year to bring football to Africa, help out an orphanage and climb Mt. Kilimanjaro.
And when she's not busy serving on the boards for Meals From the Heartland, Character Counts of Iowa, the United Way of Central Iowa and the Iowa Sports Foundation, or influencing countless athletes over the past four years at Drake, she's busy silently influencing women from afar.
Hatfield Clubb is one of just 25 female athletic directors among the 334 schools playing NCAA Division I basketball - and she's the first ever in Iowa.
Her uniqueness and her firm grasp on work-life balance has made her aware that she is a role model and an example to women everywhere of what they can achieve in athletics. Recently, she has been getting more and more calls from women in the industry seeking advice for managing the hectic life of sports administration and the hectic family life.
"I'm serving as a Division I athletic director and have a wonderful family, and I did not realize that that is a rare thing in our business," she said. "It has become very clear to me recently that it is important that I make myself available for women if they want to talk, or just as a role model, or make myself available to the NCAA."
And she has, by being active in the National Association of Collegiate Women Athletics Administrators and by speaking at events. Her advice for all the women seeking her advice?
"Know who you are and serve that," she said. "We are all created individually, we are all here for a purpose. Seek out that purpose and then align your daily activities with that purpose and everything else is going to come easily."
Hatfield Clubb knows her purpose.
"Ultimately I feel like I've been called to this business to help find a way to leverage the power of sport to serve humanity," she said. "There are so many things that have happened in the sporting industry, this multibillion-dollar industry that is just fraught with greed and ego, when it is such a beautiful expression of human talent and it is so inspiring to people and we need to use it for good. And it can do so much good."
Hatfield Clubb is far from done in Haiti. Right now she is leading an effort to start a league made up of teams from six schools, including the team Drake is sponsoring. Her hope is to get five more universities to sponsor the other teams.
"An ultimate goal is that we would inspire these young girls to really help improve their lives and build their confidence through sports so that ultimately they can help their country," she said.
• Education: Bachelor's degree in business administration and master's in education from the University of Texas-El Paso.
• Hometown: Bethesda, Md.
• Family: Husband Jeff; son, Tristan, 11; daughter, Skyelar, 9.
• Hobbies: Family. Swimming, hiking, anything outdoors. Reading.
• Words to live by: Find your purpose. Live with passion. Love freely.