Mark Dienhart (born October 11, 1953) is an American educational administrator who is the former Senior Vice President at the University of St. Thomas. He was the men's

athletic director An athletic director (commonly "athletics director" or "AD") is an administrator at many American clubs or institutions, such as colleges and universities, as well as in larger high schools and middle schools, who oversees the work of coaches a ...

at the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota Twin Cities (historically known as University of Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint ...

from 1995 to 2000. He is currently the President and CEO of the Richard M. Schulze Family Foundation. Dienhart attended

DeLaSalle High School DeLaSalle High School ( ) is a Catholic, college preparatory high school in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is located on Nicollet Island. History DeLaSalle opened in 1900 and has been administered by the De La Salle Brothers (French Christian Brot ...

Minneapolis Minneapolis is a city in Hennepin County, Minnesota, United States, and its county seat. With a population of 429,954 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the state's List of cities in Minnesota, most populous city. Locat ...

and was a multi-sport athlete in college at St. Thomas. He was the Division III National Champion in the shot put at St. Thomas, the first individual national championship in school history. He was an offensive lineman on the football team and was drafted by the

Buffalo Bills The Buffalo Bills are a professional American football team based in the Buffalo–Niagara Falls metropolitan area. The Bills compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC East, East div ...

in the

1975 NFL draft The 1975 NFL draft was held January 28–29, 1975, at the New York Hilton at Rockefeller Center in New York City, New York. With the first overall pick of the draft, the Atlanta Falcons selected quarterback Steve Bartkowski. Player selectio ...

. Dienhart coached football and track at St. Thomas from 1981 to 1986 and led the Tommies to the 1985 Division III Indoor National Championship. Dienhart served as the

Minnesota Golden Gophers The Minnesota Golden Gophers (commonly shortened to Gophers) are the college athletics, college sports teams of the University of Minnesota. The university fields a total of 21 (9 men's, 12 women's) teams in both men's and women's sports and com ...

men's athletics director from 1995 until 2000, when his contract was not renewed following the academic scandal in the

men's basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appro ...

program under head coach

Clem Haskins Clem Smith Haskins (born July 11, 1943) is an American former college and professional basketball player and college basketball coach. In the fall of 1963, he and fellow star player Dwight Smith became the first black athletes to integrate the ...

. Dienhart joined the administration at St. Thomas in 2001. At St. Thomas, Dienhart was in charge of increasing the university's endowment."Mark Dienhart is no stranger to academia."

KSTP-TV KSTP-TV (channel 5) is a television station licensed to Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States, serving the Twin Cities area as an affiliate of ABC. It is the flagship television property of locally based Hubbard Broadcasting, which has owned th ...

, July 8, 2008. http://kstp.com/article/stories/S498188.shtml?cat=173 Access date August 12, 2008. On June 17, 2013, St. Thomas reported Dienhart will be leaving the institution to become President and Chief Executive Officer of the Schulze Family Foundation, created by Best Buy founder and University of St. Thomas trustee, Dick Schulze. The following day, Dick Schulze announced his intention to expand the size of the foundation from $100 million to $1 billion.

References

1953 births Living people American football offensive tackles Minnesota Golden Gophers athletic directors St. Thomas (Minnesota) Tommies football coaches St. Thomas (Minnesota) Tommies football players College track and field coaches in the United States Track and field athletes from Minneapolis DeLaSalle High School (Minneapolis) alumni Sports coaches from Minneapolis Players of American football from Minneapolis St. Thomas (Minnesota) Tommies men's track and field athletes American male shot putters Place of birth missing (living people) 20th-century American sportsmen {{UMinnesota-stub