University of Mount Union

Mike Parnell was formally appointed as the Director of Athletics at the University of Mount Union on September 26, 2022. He had been serving as the interim Director of Athletics since May 2020.

Parnell is a 1983 graduate of Mount Union with a Bachelor of Science in math and physics. He was a four-year letterman for the Mount Union football team. After leaving Mount Union, he earned a Master of Business Administration in finance from the University of Akron. Parnell had a 36-year career with four major companies and served three years on the Mount Union Board of Trustees before transitioning to the interim Director of Athletics role.  

Parnell jumped into collegiate athletics during the COVID-19 pandemic and was instrumental in helping the institution navigate through those challenging times. Coming out of the pandemic period, Parnell has been focused on leading Mount’s athletic teams on a positive trajectory of performance in the Ohio Athletic Conference and at the national level.

There have been significant contributions to Mount Union’s athletic facilities during Parnell’s short tenure. Those enhancements include a new turf and drainage system in the recently renamed Kehres Stadium (formerly Mount Union Stadium), a new state-of-the-art indoor Melvin J. Snode Golf Center training facility (including two golf simulators), a resurfacing of the softball field, additional training equipment and video board in the Peterson Field House, and live streaming the majority of the team sports. 

Under Parnell's leadership, there have been numerous team and individual achievements by the Purple Raiders, including on the national stage. The football team advanced to its 22nd NCAA Championship game in 2022, an NCAA Division III record. The men's basketball team propelled to the 2023 NCAA Championship game and the softball team made it to the 2023 NCAA Regional Championship round - both firsts in program history. Individually, sprinter Kenadee Wayt became the first female to win two individual NCAA Titles in the same NCAA Track and Field Championship in school history, while men's volleyball senior outside hitter Cameron Ternent earned the team's first-ever All-America honor - both during the 2022-23 seasons.

Two additional areas of progress have been fundraising and student-athlete mentoring. Fundraising has been successful over the past two years with individual team fundraising efforts and a collective initiative with the Virtual Stadium Sell Out that has exceeded the goal for three consecutive years. A student-athlete mentoring program was started in the Fall 2022 with 90+ Mount Union alumni signing up to mentor student-athletes.

Parnell's professional career includes service as vice president/general manager at Alcoa, and as senior vice president and president for Bemis North America. He began his career at Goodyear Tire and Rubber where he was vice president of original equipment tire sales for North America Tire.

Parnell's community engagement has included membership on the Board of Directors of Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Summit County and Mobile Meals of Summit/Medina/Portage Counties, in addition to services as chair of the Board of Directors of the Minority Behavioral Health Group. He currently is a member of the Board of Directors for Heart to Heart Leadership in Akron. 
 
Parnell resides in Akron with his wife Karen and they have three grown children (Matthew, Whitney, and Carmen) and two grandchildren (Wesley and Memphis).