ORONO – Suzanne Tyler’s life is about to slow down. Tyler, 55, stepped down Friday as the University of Maine athletic director after seven years on the job. She will serve one year as a senior adviser studying the feasibility of a new sport and fitness center, and prepare for the fall of 2003 when she will join the school faculty.

She’ll also be spending more time at the dinner table with her son Andrew, 11, and daughter Alexis, 9. She resigned in part because of the demands of her job; it was so demanding that from Christmas through the end of April, she sat down for dinner with her family only five times.

“You know what you’re getting into when you sign on for a job like this, but being on every day for seven years, I needed a change,” she said.

Tyler was the first woman named to the athletic director post when she came to Maine in 1995 while the NCAA was in the midst of an investigation of rules infractions that led to sanctions against the hockey and football programs.

The university is now conducting a search for her replacement.

Tyler oversaw the athletic department during good times and bad.

She was at the helm when the hockey team won a national championship in 1999 and when the Alfond Stadium/Morse Field complex and the Kessock softball field were developed.

But she was also the one who decided not to renew the contract of longtime baseball coach John Winkin, and had a hand in the one-year suspension of the late hockey coach, Shawn Walsh.

Tyler said she lived her job day and night. Eventually, her desire to spend more time with her children led to her decision to resign the top spot and focus on teaching.

“I realized that I loved to teach,” said Tyler. “That’s where I started and that’s where I’m going to finish.”