Ralph Shick joined the American Athletic Conference staff as Assistant Commissioner for Compliance and Academics in May of 2023.
Shick serves as The American's primary contact for conference compliance and academic matters with the NCAA, conference staff and member institutions. He works directly with the conference's faculty athletic representatives and is the coordinator for The American's annual academic symposium.
Before coming to The American, Shick had served as Senior Associate Athletics Director for Compliance at UCF since June 2021.
He previously was Senior Director of Athletic Compliance at USC for three years. He first joined the Trojans’ compliance office as an assistant director from 2011 to 2013 before returning in latter role in March 2018.
Shick assisted the Associate Vice President for Athletic Compliance with overseeing all aspects of the compliance office’s day-to-day operation. He previously oversaw compliance initiatives for the USC football program for two and a half years, while also serving as the compliance liaison for strength and conditioning, athletic medicine, drug testing, nutrition and equipment.
Prior to his return to USC, Shick served as Associate Athletic Director for Sports and Program Services at the University of South Florida. In that role, he served as a sport administrator for the men’s basketball, men’s soccer and softball programs. He also was responsible for numerous administrative duties within the athletics department, including assisting the deputy athletic director with special projects, drafting and executing game contracts, overseeing the master facilities calendar, serving as the department liaison for the South Florida Sun Dome and Muma Basketball Facility and serving as the site coordinator for institutional and NCAA drug testing programs.
Shick was originally hired at South Florida in August 2014 as Assistant Athletic Director for Compliance--assisting the associate athletic director with overseeing all aspects of the compliance office’s day-to-day operation while serving as the primary contact for all rules education, rules interpretations, waivers and violation reporting.
Prior to South Florida, Shick served as the Director of Athletic Compliance at Florida State, where he was the primary compliance contact for the baseball and men’s and women’s tennis programs and was also responsible for overseeing a comprehensive monitoring program within the compliance office.
Before his tenure at Florida State, Shick had stops as Assistant Director of Athletic Compliance at USC and as a graduate assistant for athletic compliance at Northern Illinois.
Shick is a member of the National Association for Athletics Compliance (NAAC) and National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA). He currently serves on the NAAC Convention Committee and serves as a mentor for the Athletics Compliance Elite (A.C.E.) Mentoring Program New Professional Track. Shick previously served in the A.C.E. Mentoring Program Senior Management Track, NAAC Reasonable Standards Committee, NAAC Communications Committee, and as a NAAC New Member Ambassador.
Shick graduated summa cum laude from the University of Miami with a bachelor’s degree in sport administration and earned the undergraduate award for scholarship. He earned a master’s degree in sport management from Northern Illinois and earned the outstanding student award.