Inside Eddie Nuñez’s Unlikely Friendship With Shaquille O’Neal, His Family’s Fight to Escape Fidel and His Daughters’ Influence — UH’s New Athletic Director Surprises

When Shaquille O’Neal showed up to a random University of New Mexico basketball game last season, a lot of surprise accompanied the visit. After all, Albuquerque is hardly a regular stop on the itineraries of global superstars like Shaq. That’s the power of Eddie Nuñez.

University of Houston’s new athletic director is a good friend of Shaq’s. Nuñez got to know Shaq when the AD worked at LSU, where The Diesel broke backboards and tore down shot clocks long before Nuñez ever arrived in Baton Rouge. And the bond between this larger-than-life basketball icon slash entertainer and this 49-year-old son of Cuban refugees who escaped the terror of Fidel Castro has remained strong through all their various stops.

Johnny Jones, the former LSU basketball coach turned current Texas Southern University coach, helped connect Nuñez and Shaq together. But UH’s new athletic director took it from there, Jones tells PaperCity.

“That’s Eddie being Eddie,” Jones laughs. “. . . He and Shaq still talk all the time. As a matter of fact when we (Texas Southern) played out there (at New Mexico) last year, Shaq was going to see him the next week in New Mexico.”

Shaq carries a reputation for being a jovial, generous giant for good reason. But he’s also very cautious about who he really lets in, who gets to enter his true circle of trust.

“A lot of times you see these athletes and they move through life a certain way,” Johnny Jones tells PaperCity. “Because of trust factors. I think Shaq knew Eddie was somebody he could trust and for all the right reasons. And I think that’s one of the reasons they maintain the relationship today.

“Because of the way Eddie really goes about formatting and developing and maintaining those types of relationships.”

Just how wary is Shaquille O’Neal about letting people in? Mark Berman, arguably the best and most connected reporter in Houston sports media history, thought he’d broken through with Shaq after the NBA icon went out of his way to compliment a Fox 26 story Berman did on him. So Berman asked Shaq for his number, which O’Neal quickly supplied. A few months later, Berman called that number to reach out to Shaq on another story. . . and got a Pizza Hut.

Eddie Nuñez actually broke through with Shaq, became a real friend. This is how much of a connector UH’s new athletic director is. He builds relationships that others don’t expect. This will serve him well as he takes on University of Houston president Renu Khator’s mandate to double the university’s athletics budget, a directive first reported by PaperCity on Sunday and then reiterated by Khator nearly word for word at Eddie Nuñez’s official introductory press conference three days later.

Nuñez’s proven ability to make connections where others only see dead ends is a big part of what drew Khator and UH billionaire believer Tilman Fertitta to Nuñez. “There are some things I can’t train you for,” Khator tells PaperCity now. “I can’t put it inside of you.

“That’s the fire in your belly to just go outside and believe in yourself, make cold calls, walk into the (corporate) offices and see what kind of support you get.”

Eddie Nuñez’s phone is filled with numbers that people wouldn’t expect him to have, Not just Shaq, who Nuñez’ calls “a great friend” and praises for the way he treats people. In fact, Johnny Jones chuckles as he remembers sitting around with Nuñez and just marveling at all the calls coming in.

“It wasn’t just Shaq,” Jones tells PaperCity. “Football players who’d gone on to play (in the NFL). It’s amazing, We’d be sitting around and his phone’s blowing up with something going on with guys being in the NBA, NFL. You name it, they’re calling him.

“. . . I think he took a lot of pride in developing those type of relationships and really maintaining them.”

“A lot of times you see these athletes and they move through life a certain way. Because of trust factors. I think Shaq knew Eddie was somebody he could trust and for all the right reasons. And I think that’s one of the reasons they maintain the relationship today.” — Johnny Jones on Shaq and Eddie Nuñez’s friendship

The Congrats Text That Touched Eddie Nuñez Most

A lot of people talk about how many texts they receive after something big happens in their lives. Eddie Nuñez literally did get hundreds and hundreds of them after being chosen as the 14th athletic director in UH’s history (which was first reported by PaperCity). But the one that touched him the most among all those texts says something.

“I had a text message from one of our former softball players (at New Mexico),” Nuñez tells PaperCity. “Andrea Howard, all-conference, one of the best to play in the game. And just her kind words of how supportive I was, that will mean the world to me forever.”

Nuñez and his wife Jane regularly had New Mexico athletes over their house for barbecues with the couple’s teenage daughters Elie and Anna also heavily involved in those get togethers.

“All the time,” Nuñez says of those athlete/Nuñez family barbecues. “I’m no different than probably a lot of ADs that want to give as much as they can to our student athletes. For us, we want them to feel at home. We knew already it was a difficult situation to come to college.

“Just giving them a chance to unwind, go have some dinner. It doesn’t matter who it was or where they are. Every student athlete of ours, if I had an ability to engage with them, I did. And I think that’s what they wanted.”

The Father Who Fought For His Family

Eddie Nuñez lets you know that he cares if you’re in his life. That is something he learned from his parents Fausto and Carolina, who built a loving home for him and his brother even though they arrived in Miami with little and had to start over.

“We — I — can’t ever go back,” Nuñez tells PaperCity when I ask him about Cuba. “That’s kind of what people always ask. I wish I could go back. So needless to say, it’s tough. They had to give up, my grandfathers on both sides, they were both incarcerated because of their unwillingness to give up their businesses they worked so hard for.”

Even having to leave everything their family built behind in Cuba, Fausto and Carolina Nuñez built a new kind of wealth in America. One that could be measured in the impact they had on the community rather than a bank balance (though Nuñez was amazed to see how relatively well his dad had managed to set his mom, his brother and him up financially too while fighting cancer). When Nuñez’s dad died after his senior year at the University of Florida, the proud, grieving son got an unmistakable look at what a difference his father made.

“When he passed away, at his funeral service, to see the amount of people that showed up,”  Nuñez says. “I’m in awe still today. It was an endless number of people that came because of what he did and how he touched them in such a great way.”

Eddie Nuñez wants to make the kind of impact his hero dad did somewhere. He faces a daunting challenge at the University of Houston, maybe an unprecedented challenge with UH trying to establish itself as a major player in the Big 12 at a time of historic uncertainty and earth-shattering change in college athletics overall. With the financial challenges seemingly getting more daunting with every twist and turn. He’ll do it with the help of his own family, with his daughters reminding him to stay true to himself.

“You’ll come to love them, I promise,” Nuñez proudly says of his daughters. “Elie is the one who keeps me grounded in her own way. She makes me look at things in a different way. Anna, she’s my Energizer Bunny. She keeps me going. She keeps me going.”

Khator and Fertitta are counting on Nunez never stopping. Especially when it comes to building corporate connections, knocking on (and down) doors to reach areas of Houston that this UH athletics program has never reached before.

“We can make sure we get in this race — of whatever the athletics landscape is — and really do the best,” Khator tells PaperCity. “Or at least be in the upper quarter. That’s what you want. I know what (men’s basketball) Coach (Kelvin) Sampson has done, Kudos to him. He’s done so much without much resources. But that’s not sustainable excellence without more resources.

“I want us to have sustainable excellence. And I can dream about it because we are in Houston.”

Tilman Fertitta, the billionaire owner of the Rockets, the Landry’s empire, the best hotel in Houston and so much more, knows more about hiring bosses and identifying leaders than almost anyone. But the always straight shooting Fertitta admits you can never know for sure.

“We went through a real extensive search and we came to the end — and we had some really good candidates,” Fertitta tells PaperCity. “And it was really close at the end. And we just decided that Eddie was the best guy. . . You really don’t know. Everybody looks good. Let’s just see what he accomplishes.

“I think we’ve set him up for success in football and basketball. So he doesn’t have to worry about those two. Because that’s where all your money comes from — football and basketball. But now he needs to worry about all the other things to do in fundraising and in the department and sponsorships.

“He doesn’t have to worry about hiring a football or basketball coach.”

“We — I — can’t ever go back. That’s kind of what people always ask. I wish I could go back. So needless to say, it’s tough. They had to give up, my grandfathers on both sides, they were both incarcerated because of their unwillingness to give up their businesses they worked so hard for.” — new UH athletic director Eddie Nuñez on Cuba

Johnny Jones is certain of Eddie Nuñez, the man, the from-the-heart connector. Jones served as the lead recruiter who helped bring Shaq and the forever underrated Chris Jackson (now Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf) to Baton Rouge as an assistant coach and later Ben Simmons as head coach of the Tigers. Jones poured his heart and soul into LSU basketball. And Nuñez was the associate AD overseeing basketball when the university’s leaders decided that Jones needed to be let go.

The fact that Jones, Nuñez and their families stayed so close through that (to the point where Nuñez still regularly calls Jones for advice, where Jones quickly gets back to a reporter he doesn’t know well to talk about Nuñez on the night he’s introduced) says plenty. How many people do you know who are still friends with someone involved in their firing or someone they had to help fire?

“I think he did everything that he had the power to do to try and make sure that we were successful,” Jones says. “And I saw that all the time. He was sincere about that. . . Certainly didn’t have any animosity or anything with him. Actually just appreciated him.

“The tougher things got, I thought the closer we were able to become. The more we communicated.”

Johnny Jones, who’s seen just about everything in college sports, will tell you how rare that is in an athletic director. In any type of college administrator.

Yes, Eddie Nuñez happens to be friends with Shaq. But he’s just as loyal to all his other friends, forever dedicated to seeking out new connections.

“I don’t think he ever shies away from information,” Jones tells PaperCity. “He’s an information seeker. That’s what he searches for. I think he has a great resource of people to be able to do that with. But he don’t really limit himself in that way.

“He’ll connect with anyone.”

Renu Khator, Tilman Fertitta, all of UH athletics really, is counting on that.