Kristi Giddings is in her fourth year with The Big West, and serves as Deputy Commissioner. In that role, the North Carolina native holds responsibilities of chief of staff while leading The Big West's governance and compliance staff, manage The Big West's Sportsmanship program and initiatives, serve as an advisor for institutions on NCAA regulatory matters and improve upon Conference-wide efforts to fulfill Big West and NCAA compliance expectations. Giddings serves as the lead liaison to the institutional Senior Woman Administrators (SWA) leadership group and also maintains sport oversight responsibilities.
Giddings was brought in as the league's Senior Associate Commissioner as well as Senior Woman Administrator in March 2021.
Giddings came to The Big West from George Mason University where she served as the Deputy Athletics Director for Compliance, and NCAA Governance. In her role, Giddings oversaw all athletics compliance efforts, including education, investigations, interpretations, monitoring, reporting, and waiver and reinstatement requests. Giddings also served on the steering committee for the ICA Diversity and Inclusion Committee to develop a departmental culture that celebrates and fosters equity, diversity and inclusion in the athletics department.
From 2012-19, Giddings worked in compliance at the University of Maryland. She was the Assistant Athletics Director for Compliance for three years, then received a promotion to Associate Athletics Director for Compliance. She was in charge of managing the university’s athletics compliance office, supervising staff and overseeing all aspects of the compliance program. Having earned the Athletics Director’s award for excellence three times (September 2014, October 2016, October 2017), Giddings oversaw student-athlete reinstatement, initial eligibility, progress toward degree, and legislative relief waiver requests, with a near 100 percent success rate.
Giddings also spent two years at the University of Alaska Fairbanks in the most recent role of Associate Athletics Director/Senior Woman Administrator. Giddings managed, monitored and enforced a comprehensive compliance program for Division I and II sports. She supervised six of the 10 varsity sports, served as the University’s SAAC advisor, and created and wrote the University’s first Department of Athletics Compliance Manual.
Prior to making a direct entrance into the world of collegiate athletics, Giddings became acquainted with NCAA rules compliance as an attorney from 2006-10 for the firm of Spencer Fane Britt & Browne LLP in Kansas City, Mo. She worked with a team of attorneys to represent the NCAA in a variety of areas, related to rules compliance and violations of the NCAA Division I Manual by institutions, coaches, and student-athletes. Giddings also represented school districts on issues such as Title IX compliance.
Giddings earned her Bachelor of Arts in Exercise and Sports Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill her Juris Doctor from Marquette University Law School. She was the Sports Law Review editor at Marquette, where she also earned a certificate from the National Sports Law Institute.