Just as she does every morning, Amanda Howett checked her email on her phone when she woke up one December day.
A peculiar message from Forbes sat in her inbox, which congratulated her for winning an award.
Little did the Penn State Shenango athletic director know, she had been named to Forbes’ 2022 “30 Under 30” list.
“At first, I thought it was junk. I thought it was a spam email,” Howett told The Daily Collegian. “Then, I vetted the email and realized it was real. I clicked on the link, and it took me to the Forbes page, and I was like, ‘Oh my God.’ I dropped my phone, I immediately started crying, I was extremely overwhelmed with emotions.”
A graduate of Slippery Rock and West Virginia, Howett became Penn State Shenango’s athletic director in January, when the school had just two sports programs.
She has since been part of a department-wide expansion, including the launch of a women’s basketball team and fundraising for both coed golf programs, as well as a baseball team that will begin play in 2024.
The former softball player at Pymatuning Valley High School in Andover, Ohio, said the award could not have come at a better time for Shenango’s athletic department.
“We want to be similar to our other PSUAC campuses like Penn State Behrend and Penn State Beaver, where they have established athletic programs,” Howett said. “I'm hoping this award will showcase that and show people we are committed to athletics and we are committed to growing opportunities.”
It took a number of mentors for Howett to reach this stage, including Brian Crow, a Slippery Rock professor and the chair of the school’s sports management department.
He first met Howett when she was a freshman at Slippery Rock and stayed in touch with her throughout her four years on campus.
During a low point in Howett’s life when one of her grandmothers died, her mom was diagnosed with cancer.
The then-first-year student was admittedly struggling, coping with these hardships. And during some of her darkest times, Howett found solace in Crow’s office, doing work during his office hours.
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“He was extremely supportive and gave me some opportunities to take some extra time on some assignments,” Howett said. “I would go to his office and sit down and do my schoolwork because I couldn’t focus at home or anywhere else at the time.”
Despite the adverse circumstances that could have prompted many students to lose motivation, Howett did quite the opposite. In turn, she impressed Crow.
“She was the kind of student you like to have, who goes above and beyond just the classroom stuff,” Crow told the Collegian. “She’s never been one to shy away from an opportunity. She can pretty much do what she puts her mind to.”
Like Howett, Crow also attended West Virginia for graduate school. He put in good word for Howett during her time in Morgantown and helped her land a graduate position in the Mountaineers’ athletic department.
The two have since maintained a solid relationship that is often predicated on Howett coming to Crow for advice.
Crow has heard nothing but good things from his peers about how the 25-year-old Howett has fared as an athletic director.
“It’s very, very, very uncommon for someone to be in that position at her age,” Crow said. “It’s impressive. She is definitely ahead of her peers in terms of a lot of things.”
Howett said she loves working at Penn State Shenango and enjoys the nuanced aspects of working at a small school. Located in Sharon, Pennsylvania, Penn State Shenango has a minute enrollment of roughly 600 people.
Before Howett arrived on the scene, she said the school intended to expand its athletic department, but the coronavirus pandemic could have thrown a wrench in those plans altogether.
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Luckily for individuals like Campus Director Jo Anne Carick, Howett was interested in joining the staff and has since run with the position.
“As with any new program, our athletic department faced early challenges,” Carick told the Collegian via email. “Hiring Amanda has brought stability and strategic focus to the future of these engaging student life opportunities… We are so fortunate to have her on our team.”
Despite the high praise Howett receives from coworkers and former professors alike, she refuses to solely take credit for her prestigious award.
Instead, she deflects to individuals like Crow and Carick for helping her gain recognition from such an esteemed magazine as Forbes.
“I never imagined I’d get to this point by 25,” Howett said. “It’s really due to the team that we have here at Shenango and the mentors that I’ve had in the past and the experiences and opportunities that I’ve been able to take advantage of.
“There’s no way I’d ever be here without all of that in my corner.”
Moving forward, Howett hopes to continue expanding the school’s athletic training services. It’s just one of a number of projects in the works for her and the rest of the Penn State commonwealth campus.
To Howett, though, Shenango is more than just a subsidiary of the University Park campus — instead, it’s home and a place more than capable of significant growth.
The Forbes recognition is a nice gesture, but what’s taking place at Penn State Shenango is perhaps a bit more important to her.
“We're doing big things,” Howett said. “This award just kind of emphasizes that and really puts that on a national level and hopefully other people again start to see that and really know that Shenango is here to stay.”
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