This article is from the EMU News Archive. Current EMU new is available at www.emu.edu/news

EMU's New A.D. May Show Up On Recruits' Doorsteps

by Michael Rothstein, Daily News-Record

David King’s ties to Eastern Mennonite University are as deep as the blue on the Royals’ jerseys.

He graduated from there. His wife graduated from there. And his three children either graduated from EMU or are currently enrolled there.

Now, the school also will pay his salary.

Eastern Mennonite hired King as its new athletic director Tuesday, almost six months after Larry Martin resigned to enter private business.

King inherits an athletic program with an improving men’s basketball team and consistency in the women’s basketball program – and a school that has been shaken by two coaching scandals in the past decade.

"We are definitely very pleased with Dave King as our next athletic director," said EMU Vice President for Student Life Ken L. Nafziger, who supervises athletics. "We are excited about the vision he brings."

King has no collegiate administrative experience, but he has been the athletic director role at Lancaster Mennonite School in Pennsylvania for the past 1½ decades.

Lancaster Mennonite is a prime recruiting area for EMU – both for athletes and its general student population -- and Nafziger said that helped King land the job.

Despite his ties to EMU, King said it was a difficult decision to leave Lancaster, where he had worked since 1991. So much so that he took a week to make his decision after being offered the job on March 23.

He will officially begin work at Eastern Mennonite on July 1.

"I don’t think I would have gone to just any college," King said. "A year ago, I wasn’t sorting out to go to any college, by any means."

But then the job at his alma mater opened, and he decided to apply.

The 51-year-old brings a different type of vision to EMU – most notably in recruiting. King said Tuesday he hopes to go on recruiting trips with coaches and admission counselors, in part to help sell the school and in part to see what kinds of people the coaches are recruiting.

He and Nafziger are tossing around an idea of a recruiting combine – where King, coaches and admission counselors all would visit potential recruits at once. The idea would help bolster EMU’s athletic recruiting budget, which lags behind many other Old Dominion Athletic Conference schools.

"I would believe that EMU is a Christian institution and will do things differently," King said. "That’s been our hallmark at Lancaster Mennonite High School. We don’t do things the same ways others do.

"The other thing you have to realize is that some of the people I’ll be working with, there is a misnomer that Christian schools are inferior both academically and athletically. That’s the type of thing I need to break through and let the coaches come in and talk specifics. I’d want to present this as a viable option for your college education."

EMU men’s basketball coach Kirby Dean, who supplements his meager recruiting budget with his own money, endorsed the notion of the A.D. joining coaches on recruiting visits.

"I think it would be a real positive thing," Dean said. "A real good idea. I think he’ll do a good job. He’s got a good resume and the athletic teams are pretty good at [Lancaster Mennonite]. He seems pretty aggressive, a go-getter."

Dean knows King more than some of the other coaches on staff. King’s son, Ryan, is a junior on the EMU basketball team. His daughter, Lisa, is a freshman on the Royals’ field hockey squad.

When Dean first arrived at EMU as the basketball coach in 2003, he went to Lancaster to meet with King to build recruiting ties.

Before taking the job at Lancaster Mennonite, King ran Camp Hebron in Halifax, Pa., from 1986-91 and was the athletic director and a health and physical education teacher at Locust Grove Mennonite School in Lancaster from 1977-86.

"It’s all kind of new to me, but I’m excited about it," King, a graduate of Christopher Dock High School in Lansdale, Pa., said. "The only downside is saying goodbye to all your friends here. The longer-term challenge excites me."

King, who received a master’s degree from Temple, played basketball, baseball and soccer at Eastern Mennonite.

EMU is a private school and terms of his contract were not revealed.

— article by: Michael Rothstein, Daily News-Record; posted April 6, 2005