Assistant Athletic Director for Communications Danielle Percival wanted a place with community, family, and a sense of belonging. She found all of that here, at Piedmont University. 

“Just being a part of such a close knit family organization has been really helpful for me,” Percival said. “For me, I don’t know what’s next but my career has continued to progress during my time here and I’m really thankful that Piedmont has believed in me to take the next steps in my career even while I’ve been here.”

Percival went through some hardships in her life while on her route to her job at Piedmont. She came here with a partner whom she has since divorced, which allowed for her journey of personal growth and development. 

“I am with someone who I’ve been seeing for the past two years and it’s fantastic, life’s good,” she said. 

Percival started her journey at Troy University where she earned a degree in broadcast journalism in 2014. While at Troy, she assisted on the student-run television station, learning how to shoot and edit packages for local news over the course of four years. Local news really wasn’t where she wanted to go with her career, however, she had a huge interest in college sports. This led her into pursuing avenues within collegiate athletics. Piedmont was looking for a person with a broadcast background to bring more coverage to home events.

During her career here at Piedmont, Percival advanced from being the assistant director of athletic communications to taking over the director role when Timmy McCormack became the head women’s soccer coach in 2017. In 2019, Percival was presented the opportunity to return to her alma mater, Troy University, to be their director of athletic communications. But by then, Piedmont was in her heart. “I was able to use that as a way to give myself a reason to get a title advancement here, saying I really want to be here and I want to stay here but let’s make this worth my while because I have an opportunity to go back home,” she said. “But I really enjoy Piedmont and so I became the Assistant Athletic Director of Communications in 2019.”

During that time, Percival also became a part of the admin team here which was extremely crucial with COVID right around the corner. Piedmont really needed to have a communications plan to be able to make certain decisions on communication pieces during that time. The timing of it all was very critical and worked out perfectly. 

“What I love most is the relationships that form through this job. Whether it be students, coaches or parents, it’s the relationships that matter and make the job worth the long hours,” she said. 

Written by: Megan Schaefer