George Mason University Assistant Vice President and Director of Athletics Brad Edwards has announced that Kristi Giddings has been named the department’s Deputy Athletic Director of Legal, Compliance, and NCAA Governance. Throughout her career, Giddings has served in a myriad of leadership and administrative positions in athletics, focusing on compliance, student-athlete well-being, risk management, sports supervision, and NCAA governance. Giddings joins Mason after serving as associate athletic director at the University of Maryland, leading the compliance department for the past four years (2015-19). While at Maryland, she represented the department in Title IX matters and served as a sports administrator. Prior to joining Maryland, Giddings worked at the University of Alaska Fairbanks as the associate athletics director, compliance/senior woman administrator.
Back in 2006, Giddings was a practicing attorney for Spencer Fane Britt & Browne, LLC in Kansas City, Missouri. While with the firm, she worked on a team representing the NCAA in numerous matters relating to rules compliance and violations of the NCAA Division I Manual by institutions, coaches and student-athletes. In 2005, she had a pair of legal internships with Nike in Beaverton, Oregon and Miller Brewing Company in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Giddings was a judicial intern for the Honorable John L. Coffey, Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals from Milwaukee in 2004.
Giddings earned her bachelor’s degree in exercise and sports science with a minor in English from the University of North Carolina. She graduated from Marquette University Law School with a Juris Doctor and a certificate from the National Sports Law Institute. Giddings earned a CALI Award—given to the highest scoring student in each law school class— for the Amateur Sports Law Workshop and was editor of the Marquette University Sports Law Review. She holds professional memberships with the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA), the National Association of Athletics Compliance (NAAC) and the National Sports Law Institute Law Alumni Association.
