Beth Goetz named Iowa's Athletic Director
One search came to a close today in Iowa City. The University of Iowa removed the interim tag from Beth Goetz and officially named her the athletic director at Iowa.
Goetz joined the Iowa athletic department in early September of 2022. Her initial role was as the Deputy Athletic Director and Chief Operating Officer. She took over for Barbara Burke, who retired for that post last year.
Then on June 1, 2023, Goetz was named Interim Athletic Director at the University of Iowa, taking over that role from Gary Barta, who retired from that position after leading the Hawkeye athletic program since the summer of 2006.
Since taking over the interim role at Iowa, Goetz has left her mark on the position. First, while Barta held the Iowa Swarm Collective at arm’s length once it was founded to assist with name, image, and likeness effort for Iowa football and men’s and women’s basketball, Goetz gave it a warm embrace. She has been visible at several Iowa Swarm events in the past year and given a strong endorsement to their work along with helping to engineer the collective to assist with all Iowa athletic programs.
The other major event of Goetz tenure happened in late October when she announced that Iowa offensive coordinator Brian Ferentz would not be returning in 2024. Per the nepotism rules at the University of Iowa, the athletic director would be the direct supervisor of the eldest son of Kirk Ferentz. Following the previous season, Barta drew up a new contract for Brian Ferentz with incentives that set a goal of seven or more wins and averaging 25 points per game for the Iowa offense. This year the Iowa offense averaged 15.4 points per game, which was 129th out of 130 Division 1 schools.
Goetz grew up in St. Louis and was a college soccer player at Clemson and Brevard College in North Carolina. In 1996 she quickly got into coaching soccer at the college level, joining the staff at University of Missouri-St. Louis.
In 1997 she was named head coach at Missouri-St. Louis and held that post until 2008. In 2001, she added Assistant Athletic Director and Senior Women’s Administrator to her resume at Missouri-St. Louis.
In 2008 she left those job and moved on to become an associate athletic director at Butler. She held that post until 2013 when she moved to the University of Minnesota, this time as their Deputy Athletic Director. During that time the Gophers athletic director was removed and Goetz took over in an interim role in 2015 into 2016.
She left the Gopher program in 2016 and landed at UConn until 2018 as the Huskies Chief Operating Officer. Finally in 2018, she returned to the Midwest to become the athletic director at Ball State.
By all accounts, Goetz has been warmly received by the Iowa coaches, student-athletes, and donors during her interim tenure leading the Hawkeye athletic department. She has been a regular attendee supporting all of the athletic programs at the University of Iowa.
