Bill Maher, a graduate a Canisius University, in in his 19th year leading the Golden Griffin athletic department after being hired on July 1, 2005. In November 2023, Maher was promoted to Vice President and Director of Athletics and Recreation. The longest tenured athletic director among the four Western New York Division I schools and the third-longest tenured athletic director in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC), Maher returned to his alma mater after spending seven years in various athletic administration roles at the University at Buffalo, including a stint where he served as the school’s interim athletic director from 2003-05.
In March 2023, Maher was honored as a Cushman & Wakefield Athletic Director of the Year Award recipient by the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA). The Cushman & Wakefield Athletic Director of the Year Award highlights the efforts of athletics directors at all levels for their commitment and positive contributions to student-athletes, campuses and their surrounding communities.
Since Maher took over at Canisius, the 20 varsity athletic programs have combined to win a total of 31 conference regular season and tournament championships, and a number of teams have enjoyed the most successful seasons in their respective histories. A total of 79 student-athletes have been recognized with major individual conference awards, including a program-record 10 honorees in 2017-18. Canisius has also claimed the Battle of the Bridge and won the Canal Cup trophy in 13 of the last 17 years, including a stretch of 10-straight championships from 2010-11 through 2019-20. The Battle of the Bridge is an all-sports rivalry series with Canisius’ biggest local rival, Niagara University.
Four Canisius student-athletes have been selected as the MAAC Student-Athlete of the Year during Maher’s tenure, with the most recent honoree being former women’s lacrosse player Erica Evans, who won the award at the end of the 2016-17 academic year. Former baseball student-athlete Connor Panas earned the award in back-to-back seasons (2013-14 and 2014-15), while Katie (Miranto) Burd (softball) and Sean Jamieson (baseball) were honored after the 2007-08 and 2010-11 years, respectively. The MAAC Student-Athlete of the Year Award is the conference’s highest individual honor for a student-athlete.
Canisius has added five varsity sports since Maher took over at the University, starting with the addition of the rowing program in 2011-12. Canisius also added indoor and outdoor track for both the men and women during the 2013-14 academic calendar.
During Maher’s tenure, the University facilities have undergone a number of renovations and branding initiatives. In 2007, the school opened the Center for Athletic Training; a facility which is widely regarded as one of the premier on-campus athletic training facilities in the MAAC. New locker rooms were constructed for all women’s teams and finished in 2008, while the men and women’s basketball teams each moved into new locker room facilities in the summer of 2009. New offices for head coaches and their assistants, along with new locker room space for all of the men’s teams were constructed in 2010. The Koessler Athletic Center Pool was renovated during a two-year project in 2015-16 and 2016-17 and state-of-the-art LED lighting was added to the Demske Sports Complex in the summer of 2019. In the summer of 2023, the Demske Sports Complex received a $1.75 million facelift, with the installation of a new A-Turf Titan playing surface. Included in that project was improvements and safety features being added to the baseball and softball dugouts, and the facility’s three scoreboards were refurbished and rebranded as well.
Maher played an integral role in helping the University’s hockey program make the move to a permanent home at LECOM Harborcenter, a $172 million hockey-based, mixed-use facility located directly across the street from KeyBank Center, the home of the National Hockey League’s Buffalo Sabres.
In March 2015, Canisius announced that the University’s athletic department and communication studies program entered into an agreement with ESPN, under which its students produce live Canisius home sporting events for ESPN3 and ESPN+. This athletic and academic collaboration was put into place to provide Canisius students with hands-on learning experience in live video production, while also helping to broaden the reach and visibility for Golden Griffin athletics. To help facilitate this partnership and to properly produce video content for ESPN, Canisius built the state-of-the-art Golden Griffin Sports Broadcast Center on the first floor of the University’s Science Hall building. The control room features top-of-the-line video production and audio equipment, and also serves as a classroom space for the students in the University’s sports broadcast journalism classes and other video production efforts.
Maher has a long record of committee service within both the NCAA and conference governance structures, which include:
• NCAA Division I Council (2015-18)
• NCAA Division I Leadership Council (2012-14)
• NCAA Division I Legislative Council (2008-12)
• NCAA Division I Management Council (2007-08)
• MAAC Television and Marketing Committee
• Chair of the MAAC Technology Committee
• Chair of the MAAC Men’s Lacrosse Committee
• Chair of the MAAC Committee on Athletic Administration (2019-22)
• MAAC Membership Committee (2022)
• NACDA I-AAA ADA Executive Committee
• Member, and past chair, of the Buffalo Sports Commission
Canisius has hosted 28 MAAC Championships since 2005, and Maher has served as the tournament director when Canisius has co-hosted the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament with the MAAC and Niagara on five occasions (2007, 2010, 2014, 2017 and 2022). In 2019, Canisius joined with the MAAC and Niagara to serve as the host group for the NCAA Division I Men’s Ice Hockey Frozen Four, and the trio has again been named to host the 2026 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball First and Second Rounds at KeyBank Center in downtown Buffalo.
Nineteen Golden Griffin teams have played in the NCAA Tournament during Maher’s tenure, with the women’s lacrosse team taking part in six of those national postseason events in a span of seven years from 2011-17. The Canisius baseball team has earned the MAAC’s bid into the NCAA Division I Baseball Tournament four times, most recently in 2022, and the men’s lacrosse team has played in three NCAA Division I Men’s Lacrosse Championship events (2008, 2012 and 2018). In 2018, the men’s lacrosse team played host to Robert Morris at the Demske Sports Complex in the opening round of the NCAA Division I Men’s Lacrosse Tournament, making the first time in school history where Canisius hosted an NCAA tournament game on its campus. In 2022, the Canisius softball team returned to the NCAA Division I Softball Championship field, the 12th NCAA berth in program history, and the Griffs’ first since 2009. The school’s hockey team secured its second berth into the NCAA Division I Ice Hockey Championship field in 2023 after the Blue and Gold won the Atlantic Hockey championship game on home ice in front of a sell-out crowd inside LECOM Harborcenter.
The Canisius athletic department had one of, if not the most successful years in school history during the 2012-13 athletic campaign. Canisius became the first Division I school in Western New York to send three teams to the NCAA Tournament in the same athletic year, won four conference titles and had four teams experience postseason play, which included the men’s basketball program making its first national postseason appearance since 1996.
In 2017-18, the Canisius men’s programs won the MAAC Commissioner’s Cup, which recognized the Canisius men as the top overall program within the conference. That Commissioner’s Cup title was the first in the University’s history as a member institution of the MAAC.
In addition to all of the success in the athletic venue, the Golden Griffins have achieved numerous academic honors on the conference, regional and national levels. During Maher’s time at Canisius, the University has had 30 student-athletes recognized on the district level as CoSIDA All-Academic selections, including 10 Academic All-Americans over the last 19 years.
Canisius teams have collected 42 NCAA Public Recognition Awards during Maher’s time on Main Street, while the University recently reported a 98 percent success rate in the NCAA’s annual Graduation Success Rate report.
At Canisius, Maher has helped rebrand and build the school’s Blue & Gold Fund, the primary fundraising arm for the athletic department. Canisius has increased Blue & Gold Fund support by 21 percent over the most recent six years, and realized a net increase of 25 percent in donor participation. Annual contributions to the Blue & Gold Fund now total more than $500,000 annually.
Prior to taking over as the director of athletics at Canisius, Maher spent seven years at the University at Buffalo, and served as the Bulls’ interim athletic director from 2003-05. During his tenure as interim athletic director at Buffalo, Maher helped UB athletics oversee $3.6 million in capital improvements to its athletic facilities and the restructure of the school’s Blue & White Club, which generated $1 million during the 2003-04 academic year.
Maher was a four-year letterwinner as a member of the Canisius football team from 1985-88, and he earned All-America honorable mention honors after his senior season. He received his bachelor’s degree from Canisius in physical education in 1989, and went on to earn his master’s degree in sport management from East Stroudsburg University in 1990. Following an internship with the New York Knicks, Maher returned to Canisius in 1991, becoming the assistant athletic director for compliance in 1994.
Maher became the director of compliance at the University at Buffalo in 1998, where he moved up the ranks and was named senior associate athletic director in 2002. In that role, he managed the day-to-day operations of the Division of Athletics, including direct supervision of Buffalo’s football and men’s and women’s basketball program, in addition to the office of compliance and the office of student-athlete services. In 2003, Maher was appointed the interim director of athletics at Buffalo, a position he held until being named to his current post.
Maher, a native of Avon, N.Y., currently resides in Buffalo with his wife Kristin. The couple has two sons, Danny and David.
