Jessie Biggs tabbed as Indiana Tech director of athletics

FORT WAYNE, Ind. – Jessie Biggs has been selected as Indiana Tech’s next director of athletics, Vice President for Student Affairs Dr. Daniel J. Stoker and President Dr. Karl W. Einolf announced. Biggs will retain her role as head women’s basketball coach and succeed Debbie Warren, who announced her retirement following a 40-year career in collegiate athletics earlier this year. Biggs will assume her role as athletics director on June 6.

“During Coach Biggs’ time at Indiana Tech, she’s been highly effective on the court and off, taking on administrative duties for the athletics department that have prepared her well for the athletics director role,” Dr. Einolf said. “Coach Biggs is a passionate, motivated and inspiring leader, and I am confident she is going to take our athletics programs to a new level of excellence.”

Biggs is in her eighth season as the head coach of the Warrior women’s basketball team and in her fifth year as the associate director of athletics for event management and senior woman administrator. Heading into the 2020 postseason, the Ottumwa, Iowa, native has compiled a 178-82 record on the hardwood while leading the Warriors to three-straight Wolverine-Hoosier Athletic Conference (WHAC) regular-season titles and four consecutive trips to the NAIA Division II National Championship.

“I would like to thank Indiana Tech and the administration for this opportunity and their belief in me,” Biggs said. “Indiana Tech is a wonderful place to call home and I am excited to embrace a new role as athletics director. I look forward to building upon the great leadership and work that Debbie Warren has done for the athletics department.”

Since arriving in the Summit City in 2012, Biggs has served the university in a variety of administrative roles, including managing the softball and women’s lacrosse programs during periods of transition, mentoring new coaches and staff members, overseeing game-day management operations and working through the complexities of recruitment and scholarship models. She currently sits on the Athletics Hall of Fame Selection Committee and is a liaison between the Athletics Department and Admissions Office.

Biggs earned her bachelor’s degree in criminology with a minor in athletic coaching from the University of Northern Iowa in 2007 and her master’s degree in wecreation, parks, and tourism administration from Western Illinois University in 2011. While at UNI she garnered All-Missouri Valley Conference accolades as a senior and was named the Northern Iowa Female Athlete of the Year that season while serving as team captain. She ended her playing days ranked third in program history in career assists and currently sits in fifth place with 372 career dimes. Her 107 career starts are the sixth most all-time while she is second in minutes with 3,828. Over her four years in Cedar Falls she amassed 1,096 points and ranks 16^th all-time in program history.

After graduating from UNI, she spent two season as an assistant women’s basketball coach and director of intramural sports at Coe College, an NCAA Division III school in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. In 2010 she went Western Illinois University, spending two years as a graduate assistant with the women’s basketball program before coming to Tech in the summer of 2012.

Biggs lives in Fort Wayne with her wife, Kylene, and daughter, Olivia.