Director of Athletics and Recreation Dr. M. Grace Calhoun added another Associate Athletic Director to her staff with the hiring of Dr. Andrea Wieland.
Earlier on Friday, Penn Athletics announced the hiring of Dr. Andrea Wieland as the new Associate Athletic Director for Sports Performance.
"The Sports Performance program within Penn Athletics plays a significant role in holistically developing our students into well-rounded young men and women, and providing them with an unrivaled experience," Athletic Director M. Grace Calhoun said in a press release. "Andrea's background in leading large-scale departments and executing high performance curriculums, along with her time as a collegiate coach and elite athlete, made her the perfect candidate to take our Sports Performance unit to an even higher level."
Wieland is poised to take over Penn’s Sports Performance team, which oversees sports medicine, athletic training, strength and conditioning, nutrition, sports psychology, and mental health and wellness.
Wieland comes to Penn with many years of experience training athletes both physically and mentally. Her most recent position was the Head of Mental Conditioning at IMG Academy, a prestigious sports training school for high school and amateur athletes, where she was in charge of a variety of mental conditioning programs for student-athletes for the past three school years. She was also the chair of the student well-being committee, which worked to ensure that proper aid was given to students in distress.
Notable athletes to have come through IMG during Wieland's time there include Michigan quarterback Shea Patterson, Alabama linebacker Dylan Moses, Portland Trail Blazers guard Anfernee Simons, and Orlando Magic forward Jonathan Issac, among others. IMG varsity football did not lose a single game in Wieland's tenure there, having won every contest since August 2014.
"I am so grateful for this tremendous opportunity with Penn Athletics, and want to thank the entire search committee for their efforts," Wieland said in the press release. "The position is really about tapping into the amazing resources that already exist and people on campus. The leadership in the Athletic Department is eager to make high performance and wellness programming a great success."
In addition to IMG, Wieland has been involved with several other companies that deal with athlete’s mental and physical health. She has served as the president of Winning Systems, Inc., which gives performance enhancement presentations and workshops to coaches and athletes, since 1994. She also founded E1Fit, a fitness, nutrition, and mental training company.
Wieland also has a deep history as an athlete. She was a goalkeeper on the United States National Field Hockey team for 12 years, which included a fifth-place finish at the 1996 Summer Olympics.
The hiring comes seven months after the departure of former Senior Associate Athletic Director and Senior Women Administrator Sherryta Freeman, and five months after the promotion of fomer men’s soccer coach Rudy Fuller to Senior Associate Athletic Director for Intercollegiate Programs.
It also comes just a few months after The Daily Pennsylvanian published a report on the difficulties many athletes face in accessing the proper mental health resources.
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