When UT’s first Women’s Athletics Director, Gloria Ray, resigned in 1983, Joan Cronan, who had coached basketball at UT from 1968 to 1970 (when the program was located in the College of Education) was lured away from her 10-year post as athletics director at the College of Charleston to continue the building of UT’s nationally regarded program. A master’s degree graduate of Louisiana State University (LSU), Cronan took the 1969 basketball team just short of the first National Women’s College Basketball Championship at West Chester (Pennsylvania).
In 2011 when Men’s Athletics Director Mike Hamilton resigned, Cronan was appointed interim vice chancellor for athletics, to serve until a permanent vice chancellor could be named. Her appointment marked the combining of the Men’s and Women’s Athletics Departments, which continued after her successor was named.
An avid tennis player, Cronan has been ranked as high as second in the South in doubles and is a former state and southern doubles champion. In 1998 the Knoxville Sports Hall of Fame named her Administrator of the Year. She received the 1994 Toastmaster’s International Communication and Leadership Award, and in March 1987 the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association presented her its leadership award. She also holds the 1995 regional award for the National Association of Collegiate Women’s Athletics Administrators.
She has been enshrined in the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame (2008), FCA Hall of Champions (2003), the Knoxville Sports Hall of Fame (1998), the LSU Alumni Hall of Distinction (1995), and the College of Charleston Hall of Fame (1990). She has served as a member of the NCAA Executive Committee and the NCAA Council, as well as the Southeastern Conference Executive Committee. In 2011 she was the recipient of the United States Sports Academy’s Carl Maddox Sports Management Award given annually to a leader in athletic administration. UT named her athletics director emeritus.
At its June 2014 meeting, the board of trustees named the volleyball practice facility under construction the Joan Cronan Volleyball Practice Facility. The university formally dedicated the facility in Cronan’s honor on October 24, 2014. The same month, the university honored the first recipient of the Joan Cronan Lady Vol Graduate Fellowship. On April 20, 2016, the University of Tennessee and the City of Knoxville dedicated a street, formerly called Leinard Lane, as Joan Cronan Way. The street, located in the university’s River District, leads to the athletic complex that houses the Cronan Volleyball Center, Lee Softball Stadium, and Regal Soccer Stadium. Cronan was the first recipient of the NCAA President’s Pat Summitt Award in 2017 and was inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame as part of the Class of 2019.