Head of School Dr. Priscilla Sands announced on Thursday, Nov. 17 in an email that Sheila Pauley will assume the role of Marlborough’s new Athletic Director beginning on Saturday, Jul. 1, 2017.

Pauley is joining the Marlborough community after serving as Athletic Director for 10 years at the Agnes Irwin School, an all-girls school in Pennsylvania.

She has been involved in athletics for most of her life, playing softball and basketball in high school, and basketball throughout college. Since then, she’s coached both basketball and softball at Agnes Irwin.

When looking for new job opportunities, Pauley said she knew she wanted to continue to work in an all-girls environment where the focus is solely on female athletes.

“I was blown away by the students, the faculty, the administration, the parents that I met with—it just seemed like a remarkable school…It’s such a different environment when you’re competing with the football team, the wrestling team, and in an all-girls school obviously you don’t have that competition—it’s all about the girls teams, it’s all about developing the leaders,” she said.

When Pauley visited this past November, she was said she impressed by Marlborough’s academic curriculum, and now hopes to build an equally robust athletics program.

“My main focus will be the strong academics at Marlborough. I want to see the same thing for the athletic program, and I see no reason why the School can’t have both,” Pauley said.

Pauley and her husband said they are looking forward to making the move to Los Angeles and joining the community in June of 2017.

“I was so impressed with the Marlborough community and how welcoming everyone has been since it was announced that I was coming. It’s just been amazing and I can’t wait to get involved and physically be there,” she said.