PhD, where he was also strongly linked to the UW Athletic Department and quickly rose to the rank of assistant athletic director under Jim Owens
, who was Washington's football coach and athletic director when Kearney joined the Athletic Department. From this position, he was appointed athletic director for the University of Washington when Owens decided to focus solely on his job as football coach.
In addition to the above roles, Kearney also served as the Assistant Executive Director of the
United States Olympic Committee
(USOC) as a committee member and later as a USOC Committee Chairman. He was then named to the USOC Board of Directors and in 1996 he was awarded the USOC Olympic Torch Award.
In the 1978–79 season at
1979 NCAA Division I Basketball Tournament
.
Kearney hired and worked with some of the most prominent coaches in university athletics, including Hall of Fame football player,
NCAA Men's Ice Hockey Championships, with Mason retiring with the all-time highest number of wins in Division One ice hockey. Mason was the athletic director at Michigan State University until his retirement in early 2008, when he was succeeded by Mark Hollis, who was basketball team manager on Jud Heathcote
's staff at Michigan State and on Kearney's staff at the Western Athletic Conference.
Honors
In 1991, Joe Kearney was nominated by the
Washington
Sports Hall of Fame for his long career in high-school and university athletics within the state.
Later life and family
Kearney retired to
Denver, Colorado
). He was the father of five children (Jan Veile, Kevin Kearney, Erin Leary, Shawn Bassham and Robin Kearney) and had eleven grandchildren (Christopher Kearney; Katie Kearney; Nicholas Kearney; Emma Tanabe; Ryan Kearney; Aaron Bassham; Seth Bassham; Graham Veile; Laurel Sanford; Trey Howard and Adrianne Leary).
Kearney died on May 5, 2010, in Tucson, after an eight-month battle with pancreatic cancer.
