April 22, 2022
Robert G. Driscoll Jr.
Vice President and Director of Athletics
DOCTOR OF PHYSICAL EDUCATION
Robert G. “Bob” Driscoll will retire next month after leading the Providence College athletics department for 21 years, a period of extraordinary competitive success and broad-based impact.
A visionary and strategic leader, Mr. Driscoll has inspired a generation of Friar coaches, staff members, and student-athletes to rally around the goals that comprise his description of the athletics department mission: being the most respected athletic program in the country, graduating every student-athlete, and competing for championships. By every measure, his tenure has been one of the most successful in Friar sports history.
The stellar performance of the 2020-2021 men’s basketball team, which won the BIG EAST regular season title and advanced to the NCAA Tournament Sweet Sixteen, capped a period of competitive success that included NCAA championships in men’s hockey (2015) and women’s cross-country (2013). The current student-athlete graduation rate is 97% and Friars collectively contribute thousands of hours each year to support worthy community causes. Taken as a whole, this work represents and extraordinary level of achievement in competition, the classroom, and the community.
Part of Mr. Driscoll’s enduring legacy will be a complete overhaul of the college’s athletics facilities, beginning with the Concannon Fitness Center in 2007 and continuing through the $35 million, 58,000-square-foot Ruane Friar Development Center in 2018. The latter is home to the men’s and women’s basketball training facility and the Sports Medicine Innovation Lab, a state-of-the-art health and wellness center available to PC’s 350-plus student-athletes.
He began his career in athletics administration in 1975, serving as assistant athletic director while coaching the baseball and hockey teams at Union College in Schenectady, N.Y. From there, Mr. Driscoll moved to California, first working as athletic director at Mills College in Oakland (1981-87). After 14 years in athletics administration at the University of California, Berkeley (1987-2001), he returned to his native New England and Friartown, an enduring moniker that Mr. Driscoll coined early in his Providence College tenure.
A standout athlete himself, Mr. Driscoll is a member of the inaugural class (1993) of the Concord-Carlisle (Massachusetts) Athletic Hall of Fame, recognizing his contributions in football, hockey, and baseball. In 2019, he was inducted into the 50th anniversary class of the Athletics Hall of Fame at Ithaca College, from which he earned both a bachelor’s degree (1974) and master’s degree (1975). He has twice been recognized as Under Armour I-AAA Athletics Director of the Year and, in 2020, he earned the Division I-AAA Athletic Directors Association Builders’ Award.
Mr. Driscoll and his wife, Cathy, have three grown children, including Sean Driscoll ’09, ’11G.
