Football
- Title:
- Director of Football Operations
- Email:
- kvanderz@syr.edu
- Phone:
- 5500
Kevin Van Derzee returned to Upstate New York to become SU’s director of football operations in 2009 after serving as the director of high school relations for football at the University of Tennessee and as the director of football operations at Richmond, Central Connecticut State University and Massachusetts. In 2013, he changed roles moving into athletics administration.
A native of Ravena, N.Y., Van Derzee graduated from the State University of New York at Cortland in 2000. At Cortland he was a football student manager as a freshman and a football student coach for three years, coaching the special teams for the varsity squad and coaching the junior varsity. His father, Gary, is the president of New York State’s Section 2 Football and has been the head coach at Ravena High School since 1983, where he has won four Section II Class B titles and eight division titles.
Before moving to Tennessee, Van Derzee was the director of football operations at the University of Richmond from 2006-08, where he was responsible for managing the recruiting budget, serving as a liaison with compliance, admissions, financial aid and housing services, coordinating high school and youth football camps and supervising the intern program.
As the director of football operations at Central Connecticut State University from 2004-06, Van Derzee was responsible for administrative aspects of the program and also served as the Executive Director of CCSU’ Blue Devil Touchdown Club, which was established to raise additional funds for the Blue Devil football program. He was also responsible for planning the first football team banquet, ring ceremony and golf tournament.
Prior to working for the Blue Devils, Van Derzee worked as the University of Massachusetts’ Director of Football Operations from 2002-03. While in Amherst, Van Derzee developed the First Annual Football Alumni Golf Outing and created and oversaw the operations intern program.
Van Derzee started his career in athletics working in the New York Giants player personnel department as an intern in 2000 and 2001, where he coordinated free agent invitations and tryouts. He was the defensive ends coach at the University of Albany in 2000.
