Updated January 24, 2024

Mark Coyle was named the University of Minnesota’s athletics director in May 2016. A former athletic administrator at Minnesota, he returned to Gopher Athletics after serving as athletics director at Syracuse University and Boise State University and as deputy athletics director at the University of Kentucky. 

Coyle is also a member of the Division I Men's Basketball Committee and is a former member of the Rose Bowl Management Committee. 

At Minnesota, Coyle oversees an athletic department that sponsors 22 varsity sports and showcases 625 student-athletes and 260 employees. Under his direction, the Golden Gophers have excelled in the classroom, on the field and in the collegiate community. He guides an athletic department that generates $471 million annually in economic impact in Minnesota and draws more than 1.2 million people annually to a Gopher athletic facility. 

During Coyle's tenure, Minnesota has won 16 regular-season conference titles, eight conference tournament championships and 18 individual NCAA national championships. Those titles have come from 11 different programs, from baseball and volleyball, to hockey and soccer. In the classroom, Minnesota has produced 251 College Sports Communicators Academic All-District selections and 79 College Sports Communicators Academic All-Americans under Coyle through the 2021-22 school year. 

In the most recently released data (December 2023), Minnesota has a 95 percent Graduation Success Rate (GSR). Under Coyle’s leadership, Minnesota has now recorded the six highest GSR statistics in school history during the last six years with a school-record 96 percent mark in 2021, 94 percent in 2022, 2020 and 2019, and a 93 percent rate in 2018. The Gophers also rank tied for third in the Big Ten with Illinois in the current GSR data behind only Northwestern and Michigan. 

Gopher student-athletes posted a school record GPA of 3.46 in the Fall of 2023 and in the most recent full academic year (2022-23) posted a cumulative GPA of 3.40. Minnesota had 318 Academic All-Big Ten honorees, 115 Big Ten Distinguished Scholars, 56 College Sports Communicators Academic All-District selections and nine College Sports Communicators Academic All-Americans. In the most recent APR scores, five Gopher programs have a perfect 1,000 multi-year score, while 18 programs have perfect single-year APR scores. 

In competition, the Gophers claimed two team conference titles, while one individual won a NCAA championship and seven individuals won Big Ten titles in 2022-23. Minnesota finished 31st out of 305 universities in last year’s Learfield Directors’ Cup race, which measures broad-based success across all programs. That puts Minnesota in the top 11 percent of all Division I athletics departments in the country.

With Coyle at the helm, Minnesota opened the world-class Athletes Village in January 2018 that directly benefits every student-athlete on campus. The all-inclusive facility provides ample space for student-athletes to study, train and eat. In the last few years, Minnesota has also opened new facilities for golf and wrestling and built an outdoor track stadium. Minnesota is scheduled to break ground on a new gymnastics facility as well. 

Minnesota continues to prioritize the mental health and well-being of its student-athletes under the direction of Coyle. The department has expanded its mental health resources and more than 65% of Gopher student-athletes use these services.  

While at Syracuse, Coyle guided the Orange during a year (2015-16) in which two of its programs won national titles and three, including both men's and women's basketball, competed in Final Fours. The Orange also won five Atlantic Coast Conference titles under Coyle's watch. 

During Coyle's tenure at Boise State, Bronco teams posted then the highest grade-point average in school history and 18 teams setting program GPA records. Boise State also won 12 conference championships in six different sports during Coyle's leadership. In the 2014-15 academic year, Boise State was the only Football Bowl Subdivision school in the country to win conference titles in football, men's basketball and women's basketball. 

Prior to joining Boise State, Coyle served in several athletics roles at the University of Kentucky, eventually rising to the title of Deputy Director of Athletics. At Kentucky, Coyle led a team that raised more than $140 million in annual donations and capital pledges, while also serving as a sport administrator for multiple teams. He was also the sport administrator for the men's basketball program, which reached the NCAA Final Four in 2011. 

During his first tenure at Minnesota, from 2001 to 2005, Coyle served as Associate Athletic Director for External Relations, a role in which he was responsible for managing the marketing and sales unit, athletic communications, the ticket office and licensing. 

A former football student-athlete, Coyle graduated from Drake University with his bachelor’s degree in English in 1991. He earned his master's degree in teaching from Drake in 1992 and a master's degree in sports administration from Florida State University in 1993. 

Coyle and his wife Krystan, a physical therapist, have one daughter (Grace) and two sons (Nicholas and Benjamin).