SUPPORT STAFF
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2013 Georgia State Football
FOOTBALL STAFF
bob
MURPHY
Associate Director of
Athletics - Sports Medicine &
Nutrition
Seventh Year at GSU
B
ob Murphy, associate director of athletics for sports
medicine and nutrition, is entering his sixth year at
Georgia State.
In addition to serving as the head athletic trainer for football,
he oversees all aspects of the sports medicine and nutrition
departments.
He originally came to Georgia State in 2007 as head athletic
trainer and was elevated to assistant athletic director in 2008 and
then to associate athletic director in 2011. He previously worked
directly with the men’s and women’s basketball programs.
Murphy joined the GSU staff from the United States Military
Academy in West Point, N.Y., where he served as assistant
athletic trainer, working with the football, men’s basketball and
baseball teams.
He serves as secretary and treasurer for the College Athletic
Trainers’ Society.
Murphy earned his bachelor of science degree in sports
medicine at Marietta College in 1998, and then he completed
his master of science degree in exercise science at Syracuse in
2000.
A native of Cleveland, Ohio, Murphy is married to the
former Josephine Lee, and the couple has one son, Benjamin.
dena
FREEMAN-
PATTON
Associate Director of
Athletics - Student-Athlete
Development
Seventh Year at GSU
D
ena Freeman-Patton serves as associate athletics
director for student-athlete development at Georgia
State, overseeing the athletic department’s academic
support of all student-athletes. She also serves as the academic
advisor for the football program. Previously, she spent four years
guiding the academic success for the men’s basketball program,
which boasted a 100-percent exhausted eligibility graduation
rate with 15 graduates in four years..
Under Freeman-Patton’s supervision, Georgia State
student-athletes have increased the department’s cumulative
grade-point average to record heights, and maintained a GPA
of above a 3.0 for each of the past 10 semesters. In addition,
the APR rates for the department have reached all-time highs in
nearly every sport.
Before her current stint at Georgia State, Freeman-
Patton was associate director of academic support and career
development at Maryland from 2005 to 2007, and served as
academic coordinator for the football program at NC State from
2002 to 2005. She returned to Georgia State in March 2007,
where she also served as academic advisor and then academic
coordinator from 1997 to 2002.
Freeman-Patton lettered in basketball at Liberty, where she
earned a bachelor’s degree in sports management in 1996. She
added a master’s degree in sports administration from Georgia
State in 1999.
Freeman-Patton is an active member of the National
Association of Academic Advisors for Athletics and previously
served on the organization’s board of directors. Georgia
State’s academic support program is nationally certified under
through the N4A, the second program in the nation to earn
the distinction. Freeman-Patton currently serves on the N4A
Ethics Committee, was the chair of the Life Skills Committee
and chaired the organizing committee for the N4A regional
conference in 2012. She is also an active member of NACDA
and NACWAA.
A Baltimore, Md., native, Freeman-Patton is married to
Samuel Patton and has one son, Cameron..
