Boston University

Drew Marrochello completed his 11th year as Boston University’s Director of Athletics in 2024-26 and has seen over half of BU's 24 varsity programs qualify for NCAA Championship competition since taking over the helm in 2014.

A 20-year member of BU’s Athletics senior staff, Marrochello reports directly to President Melissa Gilliam and has put an emphasis on the student experience, devoting resources to better serve the more than 600 athletes that make up the department.

In 2016, the department unveiled “Who We Are,” defining the priorities and values of BU Athletics in 15 tenets that were compiled after gathering feedback from student-athletes, coaches, staff, university administrators and alumni. 

During Marrochello’s tenure as athletic director, BU has captured 34 Patriot League titles, five Hockey East titles and six Patriot League Women's Presidents' Cups (2014-15, 2016-17, 2018-19, 2020-21, 2022-23, 2023-24). Twelve programs have qualified for their respective NCAA tournaments – highlighted by the men’s ice hockey team earning three straight NCAA Frozen Four appearances for the first time in 27 years – and three others have sent individuals to NCAA Championships.
 
The 2023-24 school year featured five conference championships as men’s soccer and men’s tennis earned their first-ever Patriot League titles, women’s rowing claimed its second PL title in three years, women’s lightweight rowing took the team title at Eastern Sprints and softball continued its dominance by defending its PL crown after winning a sixth straight regular-season championship.
 
The Terriers had the highest department win percentage of all Division I schools in New England in 2023-24 and over half of BU’s varsity programs finished first or second in the conference in their respective regular season and/or postseason.

Marrochello helped to attract talented leaders back to campus for their first head-coaching jobs. Lauren Morton ’08 (women’s lacrosse) came back to head up the program she starred on, and in 2022, one of the most decorated alumni in the history of BU men’s hockey took over the helm of the program, as Marrochello hired Jay Pandolfo ’96. In April 2023, Marrochello stayed in the Terrier family in as well, after hiring Tara Watchorn ’12 as the second head coach of the women’s ice hockey program.
 
In 2021, Marrochello tapped Melissa Graves, an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator at Wake Forest, to replace Moseley, who became the head coach at Wisconsin. Additionally, James Sica was named the head coach of men’s and women’s swimming & diving in May 2023 and Grant Cartwright was promoted to director of track & field and cross country in July 2024.

The top 11 cumulative student-athlete grade-point averages on record at BU have been achieved during Marrochello's decade at the helm. Most recently, the student-athlete body set a department record with a 3.43 GPA in 2024-25. In 2019-20, all 22 teams achieved a 3.00 GPA or higher for the first time in department history, an achievement that has been matched in each of the past five years. Well over half of eligible student-athletes have earned spots on the Patriot League Academic Honor Roll, which requires a 3.2 GPA during the semester(s) of competition. 
 
The Scarlet Key Award, one of the top honors bestowed on BU students, has been given to 69 student-athletes over the past 10 years including a group of five in the Class of 2025. In 2018, a record 28 percent (7 of 25) of the honorees were members of the athletic department.

The men’s ice hockey team reached the Frozen Four in 2023 for the first time since it advanced to the 2015 NCAA title game at TD Garden then returned in 2024 before going one step further in 2025 with its 12th NCAA title game appearance. The women’s lightweight rowing program – in existence since only 2013 – has finished as national runner-up six times. During the men’s ice hockey team’s run in 2015, Jack Eichel became just the second freshman to win the Hobey Baker Award following a spirited “I Like Eich” campaign, and another freshman, Lane Hutson, was a Hobey top-10 finalist in 2023. In 2024, Macklin Celebrini became the fourth Terrier and fourth freshman to claim the sport’s top individual honor before going on to become the second BU player to be chosen with the top pick in the NHL Draft.

The Terrier Tailgate, BU’s annual soccer game that serves as an unofficial kickoff to the academic year, produced a record attendance of 7,379 in 2015, resulting in the second-largest regular-season crowd in New England college soccer history. 

In 2017, Marrochello helped the Terriers land the largest and most comprehensive apparel deal in department history with a five-year agreement that made Under Armour the official outfitter for BU’s 24 varsity programs. 

Marrochello has worked with the office of Development and Alumni Relations to reach new heights in athletic fundraising year after year. After setting a record in 2015 at the university's annual Giving Day with $110,555 raised in support of athletics, the BU community has shattered that mark with the eight largest showings of philanthropy in department history. Giving Day 2016 brought in $513,400 and the online giving challenge produced over a million dollars in 24 hours in 2017 thanks in part to a late effort to eclipse the seven-figure mark. The mark was bested yet again in 2018 with a donation total of $1.29 million before 2019 Giving Day brought in an impressive $1.36 million. Additional million-plus Giving Days have occurred in 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025. In addition, 100 percent of Athletics’ full-time coaches and staff members donated to the department in 2016 and that has been matched in 2017, 2018 and 2019. The entire student-athlete body achieved 100-percent giving for the first time in 2018, a feat that was matched in 2023 and 2024.

A fall campaign was introduced in 2020 during the pandemic and it was highly successful as Terriers Together: Funding the Future of BU Athletics produced more than 2,000 gifts totaling $636,320. The second edition in 2021 pushed the two-year total to over $1,050,000. The 2022 edition focused solely on participation, and let to a major success, with 1,400 gifts, a 35% increase from the previous year’s total number. 

Overall, fundraising dollars towards BU Athletics has experienced significant growth since 2015. In 2018, Marrochello created a Young Alumni Council, featuring 27 Terriers across all 24 teams who had all graduated since 2010. With the assistance of this council, the Department achieved 50% young alumni participation in 2020-21. In 2022-23, the department’s total raise in new pledges and commitments of $5.44 million set a new record. That was topped the following year with more than $5.7 million raised.

Created in 2013, The Bloom Family Leadership Academy has now expanded to The Bloom Family Leadership Initiative thanks to the creation of a new Director of Leadership & Career Development position in 2017. Students throughout the athletic department now have the opportunity to grow as a person, performer, and professional through programming. 

All of BU’s varsity programs continue to invest annually to the greater Boston community and beyond. Over 2,500 hours of community service are performed yearly by Terrier student-athletes, including the annual Holiday Reading program, local Autism Speaks events, Walk MS Boston and various other events.

In 2020, the department created a Social Justice & Inclusion committee comprised of coaches, student-athletes and staff in an effort to conceptualize, review and implement education, programming and community conversation opportunities for BU Athletics. The BU Student-Athletes of Color group was formed in 2019 and has continued to grow in influence and numbers while the department’s Athlete Ally chapter was instrumental in helping BU become one of only 10 Division I schools to receive a perfect Athletic Equality Index (AEI) score in 2021 (with the perfect score continuing through the 2023-24 year).

Marrochello has introduced a master facilities plan to augment all areas of the department over the next several years. In 2019-20, the department unveiled a complete renovation of the front of the Case Center and Elliot Driben Lobby in addition to the entrance and stairwell of 300 Babcock. The facilities plan also produced a new videoboard at Nickerson Field – home of BU’s soccer and lacrosse teams – in addition to a renovation of Nickerson’s Kennel Club, a throwing wall for the lacrosse programs and a swing room for the women’s golf program. A multi-phase project for the softball team has included a videoboard along with padding, branding and enhanced dugouts, and both turf fields – Nickerson Field and New Balance Field – were recently resurfaced. 
 
The 2024-25 school year featured the completion of two significant projects in the Case Center as Walter Brown Arena underwent the largest renovation of an existing facility in BU Athletics history to greatly benefit the women’s ice program while the men’s basketball program now has fully renovated team spaces, including a new locker room.

In the summer of 2017, a restoration of the DeWolfe Boathouse trophy room took place in addition to a renovation of the women’s lightweight and openweight rowing locker room and coaches’ offices. Most recently, DeWolfe had a full renovation of its floating dock in 2023. Agganis Arena underwent a complete overhaul of its video control room in 2016, allowing for high-definition broadcasts for its videoboard and internet streaming, and a state-of-the art shooting room that serves both ice hockey programs was installed at the facility in 2017.

A Terrier Fueling Station was unveiled in Fall 2018 in the strength & conditioning room as the result of a collaboration with the Sargent College of Health & Rehabilitation Sciences and the Sargent Choice Nutrition Center that also included an area where the staff nutritionist can consult student-athletes. In a collaboration with the University’s Wheelock College of Education & Human Development, BU Athletics has recently enhanced its sports psychology offerings with a coordinator dedicated to the department.

Like the nutrition and sports psychology initiatives, Marrochello has put a strong focus on building stronger relationships with the various schools and colleges throughout campus. The most extensive example of this is a partnership with the College of Communication that provides a unique co-curricular learning environment where students gain hands-on experience through live video broadcasts on the Patriot League Network at various athletic events on campus. In the fall of 2018, BU’s video production unit took its next step by teaming up with NESN to televise a combined 18 basketball, ice hockey and lacrosse games in 2018-19. Since 2022-23, 15 of BU’s varsity programs have had their home events streamed on ESPN+ through deals with the Patriot League and Hockey East.

Other recent campus partnerships include the Questrom School of Business (leadership conference), the Wheelock College of Education & Human Development (Deaf Education Night at basketball game through the Office of Disability Services), and Government & Community Affairs (two-day camp with Boston Center for Youth & Families) among others in addition to help from the Dean of Students Office and the Student Activities Office for several events that better integrate student-athletes with the general student body.

Keeping the wellness and development of student-athletes front and center, Marrochello also spearheaded a partnership with Boston-based WHOOP, to bring their WHOOP Unite™ platform to all BU student-athletes. Through the partnership, BU student-athletes gain access to wearable technology, and individualized insights to help guide them towards improved sleep, stress management and holistic wellness.

After serving as BU’s Deputy Director of Athletics for seven years, Marrochello was officially promoted on Sept. 9, 2014. He arrived on campus in August 2005 as the Associate Athletic Director for Internal Affairs.

As the Deputy Director of Athletics, Marrochello served as the chief operating officer for the department, overseeing all of the daily operations and $20 million budget. In addition, he had direct oversight of the business office, marketing and communications, facilities, game operations and equipment services. He coordinated all revenue generation for the department, including ticketing, facility rentals, fundraising initiatives and new revenue streams.

He has served as the point person for numerous short- and long-term multi-million-dollar facility projects, including the construction of New Balance Field, the installation of a track at Nickerson Field, plus multiple locker room and team meeting-area renovations.

Following the retirement of legendary men’s hockey coach Jack Parker in 2013, Marrochello was tasked with conducting the process of finding his successor. Former Terrier captain and associate head coach David Quinn was hired and went on to be named runner-up for national coach of the year in just his second season (2014-15).

Marrochello also spearheaded the men's basketball head coaching searches in March 2009 and June 2011 that landed Patrick Chambers, the associate head coach of Final Four-bound Villanova, and Joe Jones, respectively. Chambers led the Terriers to postseason appearances in each of his two seasons, capped by the program's first conference title and NCAA tournament berth since 2002. Since Chambers moved on to the Big Ten to take the helm at Penn State, Jones, a former head coach at Columbia, has guided BU to four winning seasons and three postseason berths, including the first NIT home game in school history in 2014.

In 2012, Marrochello oversaw the introduction of two new varsity sports – men’s lacrosse and women’s lightweight rowing – and hiring the first head coaches for both programs. He also has overseen head-coaching searches for women's basketball, women's lacrosse, women's rowing and men's tennis.

Marrochello also helped launch two events – Red Hot Hockey and Frozen Fenway – that have allowed the Terrier men’s ice hockey program to play at two of sports’ iconic venues (Madison Square Garden, Fenway Park) in front of some of the biggest crowds in college hockey history. At the inaugural Frozen Fenway event in 2010, 38,472 fans – the most to ever watch a college game in the East – watched the Terriers take down archrival Boston College by a score of 3-2. In January 2023, the women’s ice hockey team made its Fenway debut at Frozen Fenway.
 
Prior to his promotion to athletic director, Marrochello was a guiding influence for BU in the world of conference realignment, resulting in a move to the Patriot League. This aligned BU with some of the top academic institutions in the country while allowing the athletic department to maintain its high levels of success.
 
Marrochello currently serves as the administrative liaison for the Patriot League women’s basketball coaches after a turn in the same role for women’s soccer. He also serves on the Beanpot committee and is a former chair of the Hockey East executive committee. Marrochello is a former co-chair of the NCAA Division I Women's Soccer committee and previously served on the America East Conference's Championships and Competitions Cabinet (CCC) while filling the role of chairperson of the Women's Soccer and Women's Lacrosse CCCs. Most recently, Marrochello was selected to join the board of directors for College Hockey, Inc. 

Before arriving at BU in August 2005, Marrochello had served as athletic director at Hudson Valley Community College since 1997. He began working at Hudson Valley in 1993 as the college's academic coordinator and assistant director of athletics.

During Marrochello's tenure as athletic director, Hudson Valley's teams combined to win 31 conference championships, 11 Region III titles and one national championship. Ten of Hudson Valley's 14 varsity teams won either a regional or conference championship under his leadership. From 1997 to 2005, 40 Hudson Valley student-athletes garnered All-America honors.

Marrochello was named the 2003-04 Region III Athletic Director of the Year by his peers at the 29 Region III colleges, and was awarded the prestigious SUNY Chancellor's Award for Professional Service in 2005. In 2022, he was inducted into HVCC’s Athletics Hall of Fame.

Originally from Arlington, Massachusetts, Marrochello has been involved in college athletics for more than 35 years as a student-athlete, coach and administrator. He received a bachelor's degree in government in 1991 from Wesleyan University, where he started four years at wide receiver for the varsity football team, was captain his senior year, and was named to their 1990s All-Decade Team. Marrochello, who is a member of Wesleyan’s Advisory Council, returned to his alma mater in 2016 to speak on an alumni panel as part of Commencement Weekend and was named to the athletic department's Hall of Fame selection committee.

Marrochello earned his master's degree in education administration from the University at Albany, and coached football for three years at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and two years at Union College.