LATROBE, Pa. (June 2) – Saint Vincent College President Father Paul R. Taylor, O.S.B., has announced an update regarding the leadership of the College's Athletic Department.
Following the April retirement of longtime athletic director Father Myron Kirsch, O.S.B., four veteran Saint Vincent College coaches and administrators will assume larger leadership roles in the department, as D.P. Harris will serve as the College's interim athletic director, Sue Hozak the deputy athletic director, Nicole Karr the assistant athletic director for facilities and internal operations, and Jimmy Petruska assistant athletic director for leadership development.
A nationwide search for the permanent athletic director position is ongoing.
Harris is currently in his second stint as the head coach of the Bearcat men's basketball team, while he has also served as associate athletic director since March 2022. A native of Wheeling, West Virginia, he originally joined the Saint Vincent coaching staff as assistant men's basketball coach in 1995, before being elevated to head coach for the 2003-04 season, a position he held for 15 years. Over his first tenure, Harris posted a record of 325-126, making two trips to the NAIA National Tournament (2004, 2005) and winning four straight Presidents' Athletic Conference championships and making four consecutive appearances in the NCAA Division III National Tournament (2012-16). His teams qualified for the PAC Championship Tournament every season between 2010-11 and 2018-19, and advanced to five conference championship games.
In 2019-20, he was hired as head coach and associate athletic director at Saint Thomas University in Miami, Florida. Over two seasons, he amassed an overall record of 36-17, including a runner-up finish at the 2020 Sun Conference Tournament Championship, before returning to Saint Vincent in spring 2022. In his first season back behind the bench in the Carey Center, the Bearcats went 15-11 overall, a 13-game improvement from the previous season, and again qualified for the PAC Tournament. Along with his coaching duties, Harris has also overseen athletics fundraising and development, gameday management and athletic communications. He holds bachelor's degree in communication from Saint Vincent College, a master's degree in sport management from Saint Thomas, and is a 2014 inductee of the Saint Vincent College Athletic Hall of Fame.
Hozak, the College's associate athletic director and senior women's administrator since 2011, has served as the head women's volleyball coach since the program's inception in 1985, closing out the 2022 season with 671 career victories, the seventh-most among active NCAA Division III coaches. A 2011 inductee into the Saint Vincent College Athletic Hall of Fame, Hozak's teams have finished over .500 in 24 different seasons, with sixteen 20-plus win seasons. She turned the Bearcat women's volleyball team into a regional powerhouse throughout the 1990s and 2000s, advancing to the NAIA regional playoffs three times and the 1994 NAIA National Tournament. Following SVC's move to NCAA Division III, her teams continued to achieve success, winning back-to-back ECAC titles (2006, 2007) and twice advancing to the ECAC championship match.
A vital piece of the Athletic Department's administrative team, Hozak is the department's head compliance officer, oversees a variety of the department's day-to-day activities, and has regularly represented the College at PAC and NCAA meetings, seminars and conventions. She has also represented the Saint Vincent College Athletic Department on a myriad of committees across the Saint Vincent campus, teaches in the College's McKenna School of Business, Economics, and Government, chaired the NCAA Women's Volleyball Great Lakes Regional Advisory Committee, served on the NCAA Division III Women's Volleyball National Committee, and served as tournament director of the 2018 and 2022 NCAA Division III Women's Volleyball National Championship Tournaments, hosted by Saint Vincent College in Pittsburgh. A native of North Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, she holds a bachelor's degree in public administration from Waynesburg University and a master's degree in education from Saint Vincent.
Karr is the winningest coach in Saint Vincent softball program history, amassing a career record of 320-237-1 since taking over the role prior to the 2006 season. Her teams have amassed 20 wins in nine different seasons, while qualifying for the Presidents' Athletic Conference Championship Tournament in eight of the past 10 seasons. Karr's teams won the PAC softball championship and advanced to the NCAA Division III playoffs in both 2016 and 2019, with the 2016 team knocking off top-ranked Virginia Wesleyan in the national tournament. A two-time PAC Coach of the Year, her players have garnered a total of 74 all-conference accolades, while 10 Bearcats have been named All-Region by the NFCA since 2015.
Karr has also assisted Hozak with NCAA compliance and served as a mentor in the NCAA Ethnic Minorities and Women's Internship program, while she has previously served on the NCAA Division III Central Region Advisory Committee and the ECAC Championship Selection Committee. A 2019 inductee into the Saint Vincent College Athletic Hall of Fame, Karr put together a stellar playing career, capped off by a senior season in which she led the American Mideast in almost every major statistical category, including doubles (21), batting average (.538), slugging percentage (.925) and on-base percentage (.582). She also was an All-AMC honoree after a junior season in which she batted .415 and topped the conference in both doubles and triples. Karr, a native of Greensburg, Pennsylvania, earned a bachelor's degree in psychology education and a master's degree in curriculum and instruction from Saint Vincent College, and holds a Pennsylvania certification in early childhood and elementary education.
Petruska has served as head women's basketball coach since 2010, and has built the Bearcats into a perennial conference and regional power. Over his 13 seasons, he has accumulated a record of 232-97 and ranks in the top-25 nationally among active coaches in career winning percentage. His teams have qualified for the Presidents' Athletic Conference Championship Tournament in each of his 13 seasons, while making six trips to the PAC title game and winning conference titles in 2019, 2021 and 2023. His teams have also made four trips to the NCAA Division III National Championship Tournament, earning at-large bids in both 2011 and 2012 and the conference's automatic berth in 2019 and 2023. Through the end of the 2022-23 season, Petruska has coached 47 All-PAC selections and four PAC Player of the Year honorees.
Along with his coaching duties, Petruska has supervised gameday operations for Saint Vincent football since 2007, while also performing gameday management duties at several Bearcat home events each season. He also serves on the NCAA Division III Great Lakes Regional Advisory Committee, and assisted in operations at the 2022 NCAA Division III Women's Basketball Final Four, hosted by the Presidents' Athletic Conference in Pittsburgh. Petruska, who began his coaching career as a women's basketball graduate assistant at Saint Vincent in 2006, is a two-time Saint Vincent College graduate, holding a bachelor's degree in history and a master's in curriculum and instruction. He is a native of Valencia, Pennsylvania.
