Betsy Mitchell
Director of Athletics and Recreation     

Betsy Mitchell has served as the director of athletics and recreation at Allegheny College since July 2006. The Olympic Gold Medalist and former world record holder is the first female director of athletics in Allegheny College history.

Prior to her appointment at Allegheny, Mitchell was the swimming and diving head coach at Dartmouth University. She transformed the program—which had never had a winning season and had not won an Ivy League contest in nine years—into a power, leading the squad to an 8-3 record in her final year.

Mitchell has served as an instructor in the sports management program at Notre Dame College of Ohio, as director of athletics at Laurel School in Shaker Heights, Ohio, and as director of athletics at Thomas Worthington High School in Columbus, Ohio.

Mitchell also has extensive experience in higher education as a consultant. She has advised institutions on such efforts as creating a comprehensive athletic program review, overhauling department policies and procedures, staff development and evaluation, recruitment systems analysis, and creating coach and student handbooks.

A dominant competitive swimmer for over a decade, Mitchell earned an Olympic Silver Medal as a high school athlete by placing second in the 100-meter event. She also won a Gold Medal that season as a member of the 400-meter medley relay in the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

After transferring from the University of North Carolina, Mitchell helped the University of Texas to three consecutive Division I Championships in 1986, 1987, and 1988. She was a seven-time individual NCAA Champion in the 100- and 200-yard backstrokes and the 200-yard individual medley, holding the American record for both backstroke events for many years and the world record in the 100-yard event. She broke the world record in the 200-meter backstroke in 1986.

Mitchell earned her second Olympic berth as a member of the 1988 team, helping the 400-meter medley relay team to a Silver Medal.
Mitchell has been honored with several awards for her athletic prowess, including USA Swimmer of the Year honors in 1986. She was also a finalist for the Sullivan Award, which acknowledges the top amateur athlete in the country, and was voted the U.S. Olympic Committee Sportswoman of the Year for Swimming. The multiple-time All-American and Academic All-American earned the NCAA Most Valuable Swimmer Award, the NCAA Top Six Award, and the Hondo Broderick Award for Swimming.

Later in her athletic career, Mitchell was introduced to the sport of sculling, representing the United States in the women's open double scull at the 1994 World Championships.

Mitchell holds a bachelor’s degree and a master’s of education degree from the University of Texas at Austin.