| Irma Garcia | |
| Current Title: | Athletic director |
| Current Team: | Manhattan Jaspers |
| Current Conference: | Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference |
| Alma Mater: | St. Francis College (B.S.) Brooklyn College (M.S.) |
| Player Years1: | 1976–1980 |
| Player Team1: | St. Francis Brooklyn |
| Coach Years1: | 1988–1999 |
| Coach Team1: | St. Francis Brooklyn |
| Overall Record: | 68–228 |
| Admin Years1: | 1999–2007 |
| Admin Years2: | 2007–2023 |
| Admin Team2: | St. Francis Brooklyn |
| Admin Years3: | 2023–present |
| Awards: | 1998 NEC Coach of the Year[1] 2009 ECAC Katherine Ley Award Winner[2] 2015 NACWAA D1 (FCS) Administrator of the Year[3] |
Irma Garcia is the interim athletics director at Manhattan College. She previously held the same position at St. Francis College until the school disbanded its entire athletics program following the 2022–23 school year. When she took the job in 2007, Garcia was the country's first Latina athletic director in NCAA Division I sports.[4] [5]
Garcia was raised in a Catholic-Puerto Rican family in Brooklyn and has seven siblings. She attended St. Angela Hall High School in Brooklyn, New York. In 1976, she enrolled in St. Francis College and played women's basketball for coach Dianne Nolan.[2] Upon graduation in 1980, Garcia taught physical education and coached girls' basketball at St. Joseph by the Sea High School on Staten Island.[2] In 1988, she returned to be the head coach at St. Francis College. After 11 seasons, she stopped coaching and was hired as the associate athletics director. In 2001, while she was the associate athletic director at St. Francis, Garcia earned her master's degree from Brooklyn College in sports administration.
In 2007, Garcia became the athletic director of the Terriers replacing longtime director Edward Aquilone. At the time of her hire and as of 2010, she was the country's only female Latina athletic director in Division I sports.[4] [5] For the 2014–15 academic year, Garcia was named NACWAA D1 (FCS) Administrator of the Year.[6] The award was in part because of the Terriers success in Men's Soccer (NEC Champions and NCAA Tournament Participants), Men's Basketball (NEC Regular Season Champions and NIT Participants) and Women's Basketball (NEC Champions and NCAA Tournament Participants).
During Garcia's tenure as director of athletic the St. Francis College Athletics program changed their brand from St. Francis (NY) to St. Francis Brooklyn.[7] The College previously came to be known as St. Francis (NY) when the athletics program joined the Division I Northeast Conference in 1981. In 2018 it was announced that women's soccer[8] and men's volleyball[9] would be added as sports programs to the existing 19 teams at St. Francis College. Both teams will begin play in the 2019–20 school year, with women's soccer starting in fall 2019 and men's volleyball in spring 2020.
In 2023, Garcia was appointed the interim director of athletics at Manhattan College.[10]