DOBBS FERRY, N.Y. – Mercy University Athletics sat down with retiring Assistant Vice President of Athletics Matt Kilcullen Jr. to get his reflections of his 12 years here at Mercy.
Kilcullen has served as the Athletic Director at Mercy University for the last 12 years. Under his leadership, the department has thrived academically, in the community and on the playing fields and courts. The department has recorded twenty-five consecutive semesters above a 3.0 cumulative GPA, culminating with a school-record 3.60 department GPA during the 2026 spring semester. Mercy has also earned the East Coast Conference (ECC) Academic Success Rate Award three times and the NCAA Division II Presidents' Award for Academic Excellence four times. The department also earned the ECC Cares Award and ECC Community Cup twice for Mercy's efforts in the community.
On the playing fields and courts, the Mavericks have won 17 ECC Tournament Championships, 21 ECC Regular Season Championships and have made 27 NCAA Tournament appearances during Kilcullen's tenure, highlighted by women's soccer advancing to the Final Four in 2017 and men's lacrosse playing in the National Championship Game in 2022.
Professionally, Kilcullen was a member of the NCAA Championships Committee and PROP (Playing Rules Oversight Panel), during his tenure at Mercy. "I will be forever grateful to the NCAA/NACDA personnel, fellow conference administrators, and athletic directors I have met along the way. You helped this young, cannot keep his mouth shut, AD, grow, with your insight and knowledge into what I believe is the best level of the NCAA, Division II."
"Dr. Bill Martinov, former Vice President of Student Affairs, thank you for giving me the opportunity to be the athletic director here in 2014. The support provided to athletics by President Tim Hall and our Vice President of Student Affairs, Kevin Joyce, got us up and running in building a quality program. This support has continued under President Susan Parish and Vice President for Enrollment Management and Student Engagement, Adam Castro as they are adding the resources needed to ensure we continue to maintain and raise the student athlete experience."
"Dawn Sachs, Bill Sullivan, our new and well deserved AD, and I have been together for 12 years. We worked tirelessly and were relentless in our pursuit of excellence for our programs and our coaches did an outstanding job of recruiting quality student-athletes. We never looked at the glass empty and made the best with the resources given to us and it all started to become a reality in 2017, when women's soccer, coached by Jonathan Feinstein, made the Final Four. What an accomplishment! We knew we did not have the resources and the facilities to compete with other schools in our region but if women's soccer can make the Final Four, let us all find a way to get to another level. Four years later, our men's lacrosse team, coached by Jordan Levine and Associate Head Coach, Joe Corace, made it to the National Championship game in 2022. If you told me when I first started that this little private school on the Hudson River would have a team in the Final Four and another play for a National Championship, I would not have believed you."
"Last, but not least, our student athletes, and with all due respect for our coaches and administrators, are what I will miss most. The daily interaction, highs and lows, fist bumps, high fives, bus trips with sing along/karaoke, and most importantly, watching you grow into young adults during your time at Mercy has been extremely wonderful to be around, kept me young at heart and provided lifetime memories for me," stated Kilcullen. "I will be forever grateful to you."
