Paul Nelson was promoted to Director of Athletics in 2019-20 after serving as the Associate Director of Athletics for Internal Operations since 2015.
Nelson oversees the entire department and has spent nearly his entire professional career at Benedictine, his alma mater.
In the role of Associate Director, Nelson oversaw and worked with compliance and eligibility, student-athlete services, athletic training, campus services, fitness center, rice center, gameday management and served as the direct report for several sports.
Prior to his administrative position, Nelson was the head women's basketball coach at the university. Within two years of taking over as head coach, Nelson had the Eagles back at the .500 plateau. In his third season – in 2006-07 – Nelson took his team to a place no other Benedictine women’s basketball team had ever been at that point: a 20-victory season.
During the 2009-10 season, Nelson led his team to a second place regular season Northern Athletics Conference finish where the Eagles made it all the way to the championship game of the NAC Tournament and finished the season with a 15-12 overall record adn 11-7 conference mark.
Nelson is certainly no stranger to the Benedictine community, as he has put in more than two decades at the school as a player, coach and administrator. For eight seasons, Nelson served as the top assistant on the men’s basketball staff. His role in advanced scouting and recruiting helped lift the Eagles to a new level. In his eight seasons, Benedictine posted eight straight winning campaigns and averaged 17.3 wins per season. The program also won four Northern Illinois-Iowa Conference (NIIC) regular-season titles and an NIIC Tournament crown and made four NCAA Division III tournament appearances in his tenure. Nelson’s expertise in conditioning and weight training greatly aided the men’s basketball program in his eight years on the bench, and it has helped the women’s team as well.
A graduate of Driscoll Catholic (Ill.) High School, Nelson played two seasons at Harper Community College before moving on to Benedictine. As an Eagle, he played two seasons under legendary coach Tony LaScala, where he was a part of two NIIC regular-season title squads. He graduated from Benedictine with a degree in psychology in 1993, and also earned his secondary education certificate from Elmhurst in 1995.
Nelson and his wife Kathleen have three children: son Colin, daughter Morgan and daughter Haley. The family resides in South Elgin.
