Women's Soccer
- Title:
- Head Coach
- Email:
- crittendw@sfasu.edu
- Phone:
- 936-468-5225
Follow Wally Crittenden on Twitter
In his 11th year at Stephen F. Austin State University, Wally Crittenden serves as the Senior Associate Athletics Director for External Affairs. Crittenden is known for his innovative approaches to ticketing, development, merchandising, licensing and marketing. Crittenden moved into this role following a seven-year tenure serving as the Head Soccer Coach since 2013. During that period, Crittenden won 3 Southland League Championships, 3 Coach of the Year Awards and was a 5-time finalist in the Southland Conference Tournament. In all, Crittenden managed teams that brought 8 trophies back to the Piney Woods. With an overall Division I coaching record of 81-47-10, Crittenden stepped into administration with a 62% winning percentage.
As the Senior Associate Athletics Director for External Affairs, Crittenden provides leadership and oversight for intercollegiate athletics sales and marketing functions, operations, game day experiences, communications, and other external affairs. Wally is responsible for oversight and coordination of fan experience, creative services, merchandising, licensing, and relationships with athletics multimedia rights, ticket sales, and apparel partners. Wally also serves as the liaison to third party revenue related contractors. Crittenden is the primary sport administrator for Football, Men's Basketball, Baseball, Cheer & Dance and Soccer.
Since Wally began leading revenue generation efforts, SFA has seen a 71% growth in licensing royalties, the launch of Purple Lights beer in collaboration with Nacogdoches-based Fredonia Brewery, released Stone Fort Bourbon in a partnership with Sisterdale Distilling Co. out of Sisterdale, TX, transitioned to mobile-first ticketing and helped realize over a 125% increase in ticketing revenue. On the advancement side of the house, Wally has been a key part of the programming and revamping of the Purple Lights Fund that has realized annual average giving of $2.048 MM on an average of 1,118 gifts per year. This amounts to a 659% increase in total funds raised and an increase of 139% in the total number of gifts given. Wally has also served as the lead project manager with Sidearm website redesigns of both sfajacks.com and purplelightsfund.org. Other revenue generation integrations include PacFund, Vozzi and sEATz in-venue concessions delivery service.
Prior to his time at SFA, Crittenden spent 8 years on staffs at Texas A&M, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the University of Oklahoma. In the private sector, Crittenden has continued to be a thought leader in defining use cases for emerging technology within college athletics. Examples of his work include minting the first-ever collegiate athletics NFT along with proving NFT application as tickets, promotions and fan art. Crittenden was also awarded the University of Nebraska Young Alumni Award in 2012 for his work in establishing the Nebraska Athlete Performance Lab (NAPL) on campus at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and with his community outreach.
A 2003 Bachelors in Sport Management graduate of Florida International University and a 2010 Masters in Higher Education Administration graduate of The University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Crittenden and his wife, Cori, have two children, Kellen and Bridget and reside here in Nacogdoches, TX.
