Renia Edwards begins her second year at Norfolk State in 2026-27 as the Assistant Athletics Director for Facilities, Operations and Events. Edwards oversees all of NSU’s athletic facilities and the game management staff. She directs game day operations across the Spartans’ NCAA Division I programs and manages the facilities operating budget and purchasing. She also coordinates outside contracts for facility use and hires and supervises the part-time and contracted event staff and the athletics grounds crew.
Edwards coordinates game operations meetings and schedules with campus partners and department staff, and assists with hosting special events, regular-season competition and postseason tournaments. She serves as the department’s liaison for MEAC game operations and officiating assignments and as campus coordinator for the MEAC Outdoor Track and Field and Softball Championships. She is also a core member of the host committee for the NCAA Division II Indoor Track and Field National Championships. A member of the department’s senior leadership team, Edwards also serves as the sport supervisor for baseball.
Edwards brings more than 25 years of college athletics administration experience to Norfolk State. She arrived from Hampton University, where she served as Deputy Director of Athletics and Senior Woman Administrator (SWA) from August 2023 to April 2025. At Hampton, she helped oversee the daily operations of a department of 100 employees and 300 student-athletes. She led the oversight and restructuring of compliance, academic support, sports performance, sports medicine, student-athlete development and athletic mental health. She also served on the university’s Extended Cabinet and Dean’s Council, was the primary contact for all NCAA matters, supervised six sports and coordinated CAA and NCAA championships.
Before Hampton, Edwards was the Senior Associate Athletics Director for Internal Affairs and SWA at IUPUI (now IU Indianapolis) from 2022 to 2023. There, she oversaw internal operations including facilities and game operations, sports medicine, nutrition, strength and conditioning, apparel and equipment, as well as the department’s capital improvement projects. She created a departmental operations manual for event management and led softball facility upgrades, including a new scoreboard and field resurfacing. She also secured a $50,000 grant for mental health education for student-athletes, coaches and staff. In addition, she served on the university’s athletics transition committee and on the Horizon League’s SWA, Governance and Competition committees.
From 2014 to 2022, Edwards served as the Senior Associate Athletics Director for Compliance and Student-Athlete Affairs and SWA at Mississippi Valley State. She assisted in supervising 15 sports and directed the implementation of a $900,000 NCAA Accelerating Academic Success Program grant. She also coordinated SWAC and NCAA championships and helped launch a campus esports lab with the Black Gaming Association.
Edwards spent four years at South Carolina State (2010-14), rising from assistant director of athletics to associate director of athletics for compliance and internal operations. While there, she built the department’s FCS compliance program, supervised eight Olympic sports and served as the athletics Title IX coordinator. She began her career in academic support. She served as an athletics academic counselor at Iowa (1998-2001) and as assistant director of student-athlete academic success services at Virginia Tech (2001-04). She then worked at South Carolina (2004-10), first as an athletics academic advisor and later as director of internal operations for the Academic Enhancement Center.
Edwards has held numerous national and conference leadership roles. She served on the NCAA Committee on Academics (2019-22), the NCAA Standardized Test Score Task Force (2021) and the N4A Board of Directors (2006-09). She currently serves on the CAA Championship Oversight Committee for softball and track and field. She is a graduate of the NCAA Pathway Program and the Women Leaders in Sport Executive Institute, and completed the Korn Ferry Humanity U Leadership Institute in 2025.
A four-year softball student-athlete and team captain at Shaw University, Edwards earned her bachelor’s degree in business management in 1995. She received an NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship and was inducted into the Shaw Hall of Fame in 2009. She earned her Master of Science in Education in sports management and physical education from Northern Illinois in 1998. Edwards is a Diamond Life Member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.
