CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Western Michigan's Kathy Beauregard has been named the recipient of the inaugural Trailblazer Award presented on Wednesday, May 18 at the MAC Honors Dinner, as part of the Conference annual Spring Meetings at the Cleveland Renaissance Hotel. The Trailblazer Award is an annual award that honors a MAC individual in any position who has demonstrated support of equal opportunities and the student-athlete experience.
Beauregard entered college athletics during the infancy of Title XI and joined Western Michigan University as its gymnastics head coach in 1979. After nine seasons as coach she moved into administration within athletics and began her meteoric rise.
Beauregard was promoted to Director of Athletics at WMU in 1997 and went on to spend the next 24 years at the helm. Beauregard was often one of the few female athletic directors in what is now the Football Bowl Subdivision and was one of just nine out of 130 when she retired at the end of 2021. Through her guidance the Broncos won 58 Mid-American Conference Championships, won the MAC Institutional Academic Achievement Award for men eight times and saw the 2016 WMU Football program go undefeated during the regular season and earn a berth in the 2017 Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic.
She oversaw the construction of the $8 million Bill Brown Football Alumni Center and the $21 million Seelye Athletic Indoor Center that is used by seven of WMU’s 16 varsity sports. In her time WMU baseball’s Hyames Field at Robert J. Bobb Stadium underwent a $2.2 million renovation, the transformation of Baker Farm into the WMU Soccer Complex, replacements of both indoor and outdoor tracks, and the installation of new video boards at Lawson Ice Arena, Waldo Stadium and University Arena.
She was also integral to many fundraising efforts that benefited bot the University and the athletic department, including the most recent $550 million Empowering Futures Gift, which $50 million was earmarked for WMU Athletics.
Beauregard’s influence spread nationally as she served on the NCAA Olympic Sports Liaison Committee, the NCAA Championships Cabinet, the NCAA Football Bowl Certification Committee and the NCAA Diversity and Inclusion Committee.
With her success, Beauregard pulled in many community and athletic awards and recognitions. She was named the Gerald R. Ford Sportsman of the Year in 2012, received the National Association of College Directors of Athletics Under Armour Athletic Director of the Year Award and was named a “Game Changer: Women in Sports Business” by Street & Smith’s Sports Business Journal in September 2018. In June of 2019 she was appointed to Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s Task Force on Women in Sports and was the recipient of Michigan Women Forward’s 2020 Women of Achievement and Courage Award.
Beauregard dedicated her career to improving the lives of the student-athletes at Western Michigan and encouraged its 350-plus student-athletes and staff to make an impact in their community. Because of all this, Kathy Beauregard will have an ever-lasting legacy at Western Michigan and in the Mid-American Conference.
