If landing a promotion was Cary Groth’s New Year’s resolution, it sure didn’t take her long to reach her goal.

On Jan. 6, NIU Athletic Director Gerald O’Dell announced that Groth had been promoted to an associate athletic director. Groth 32, had been an assistant director AD for the past five years.

Groth had serve as interim associate AD since September when Susie Pembroke-Jones left the position to take a similar spot at George Washington University.

“I’m certainly please I got the promotion,” Groth said. “It was something I was pursuing.”

Groth said a committee was formed to do an internal search of NIU to fill the position. O’Dell was first going to do a national search but then decided to keep the search within NIU, Groth said.

“Cary and (Associate AD) Clarence Hudson will jointly administer our 16 sports,” O’Dell said. “That entails a hands-on approach for all the day-to-day activities of that sport, from scheduling, to budget formulations and reviews, games management, academic eligibility, NCAA compliance, and facility supervision and coordination.”

Specifically, Groth will oversee volleyball, soccer, softball, field hockey, men’s and women’s gymnastics and the men’s and women’s swimming and diving team. Groth also will supervise the sports medicine program, as well as being department personnel manager, the summer camp coordinator and the athletic housing supervisor.

These responsibilities will be added to her current duties as commisioner of the Big Central Soccer Conference, a post she was given in December of 1988.

Groth also spent three seasons as an NIU women’s tennis coach from 1981-84. She was named Mid-American Conference Co-Coach of the Year in 1984. In her job as an assistant AD, Groth was responsible for field hockey, women’s golf and women’s swimming and diving.