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Courtesy of Greg Johnson, NCAA News

Tom Shirley grew up the son of a World War II veteran who spent four years in the South Pacific.  So when Tom Sr. told Tom Jr. that he would be a businessman, that's what Tom Jr. did.

After graduating from Allentown College - now DeSales University - with an economics degree in 1976, he spent five years working for the Ford Motor Company.

On the surface, life looked good. Shirley was making a middle-class living and driving a new car every 10,000 miles.

But something was missing.

Shirley played basketball during his undergraduate days, and the lure of athletics kept tugging.

At the age of 26, he accepted the job of director of athletics at his alma mater for a $17,000 salary, trading in the new cars for a used Ford Escort. He also became the coach of the women's basketball team.

Needless to say, his father thought he'd lost his mind. But 27 years later, Shirley is still going strong in intercollegiate athletics. Since 1989, he has held the dual roles of AD and women's basketball coach at Philadelphia University. He began as the associate AD for three years, and he has been in charge of the department since 1992.

After the initial shock wore off, Tom Sr. recognized his son's passion for intercollegiate athletics.

"My dad passed away four years ago, but he came to every game," said Tom Jr. "He was a big fan, and it all worked out for the best."

Shirley gave his father and the fans of DeSales and Philadelphia U. plenty to smile about.  He is 556-246 (.693) in his coaching career, including a 19-10 mark in 2007-08.

Balancing his duties as a coach and guiding the entire athletics department makes for long hours during the academic year. Shirley credits his wife Monica with helping make his career possible.

"With this job, you wake up early and get home late," Shirley said. "If you don't have someone to agree those are the hours you are going to keep, then it can be a difficult situation. I gained an appreciation from the support I got from her."

Another driving force for his career is the simple fact that he loves what he's doing.

"I could be at a party with a brain surgeon, a cardiologist, an accountant and a patent lawyer, they would all talk about my job," Shirley said. "Everybody wants to be in sports. I learned at an early age that I had a pretty cool job."

Early in his career, the summer hours used to be a slow-down period, but these days, the job is 24/7/365.

"When I started in this business, women's soccer ended in November and they didn't start until the next August," Shirley said. "Everything has turned into year-round sports now with the strength and conditioning piece, the nontraditional season and the championship segment."

Shirley also is worried about the technology component. While various upgrades have made communication more frequent, less of it involves one-on-one dialogue.

"Everything is about shooting someone an e-mail now," Shirley said. "You used to have a conversation with another AD about scheduling and it was a phone call. During that time you found out about their family or how they were doing. You would ask them how they came about being at the school."

The need to communicate drives Shirley's commitment to being involved in the governance structure. He is currently a member of the Division II Championships Committee and has served on the Division II Management Council and Membership Committee.

"You can meet people and engage in conversation," Shirley said. "The world is still run by contacts."  

From a big-picture perspective, Shirley is pleased with the direction of Division II. Particularly, he likes the emphasis on regionalization for regular-season competition and the marketing concept of the "I Chose Division II" campaign.

He said he encourages Division II to keep pushing for more regular-season and championships television coverage. The division is close to announcing a new six-game football package with CBS College Sports Network for this fall.

He said he also wants to ensure a level playing field when it comes to finding ways for family and friends of the student-athletes to see the competition.

"We are starting to appease the public to an extent, but we can't all do it yet," Shirley said. "I'm not sure that some of the NCAA funding that we have may be better put in customer welfare, which is the parents who pay the bills. We have to upgrade our technology across our campuses in terms of what we can produce and send to the paying customer."