HIGHLAND HEIGHTS, Ky. — Northern Kentucky University announces that Christina Roybal has been selected as the university’s next Vice President and Director of Athletics, effective July 1, 2022. Roybal succeeds Ken Bothof, who announced his retirement earlier this year.
Roybal comes to NKU from the University of Northern Iowa, where she has served as senior associate athletic director for sports administration since 2016. She also holds the title of senior woman administrator and deputy Title IX coordinator.
Roybal will lead an athletics department with 17 programs competing in Division I. Norse teams have reached the NCAA Tournament five times since becoming eligible in 2016, including women’s soccer (2016), women’s volleyball (2019), and men’s basketball (2017, 2019 and 2020). Norse student-athletes also excel in the classroom, boasting 14-straight semesters with a cumulative, department-wide GPA of 3.20 or better and a current streak of eight-consecutive semesters of a GPA better than 3.37.
In her role at Northern Iowa, Roybal serves as the primary administrator for 14 of the institution’s 17 sports, which includes being responsible for budget development, expenditure approvals, and maintaining compliance with NCAA and Missouri Valley Conference regulations and standards, non-conference scheduling, and student-athlete conduct and welfare.
Roybal serves on the Missouri Valley Conference’s Long-Range Planning Committee, Sports Management Committee, and the MVC Joint Committee sports liaison to the swimming and diving and tennis coaches.
Prior to her tenure at UNI, Roybal served for 10 years at Fresno State, where she held a variety of roles including interim senior woman administrator and sports administrator for women’s lacrosse, men’s and women’s tennis, and the creation of a women’s water polo program. Her service at Fresno State began as a group sales coordinator in 2005 before rising through the ranks to the assistant athletic director for administrative operations in 2015.
