Eddie Nunez Selected as the University of Houston’s New Athletic Director — UH Leadership Makes Its Final Decision

Eddie Nunez is the choice as the University of Houston’s new athletic director, with UH leadership making its final decision on Saturday, a source close to the leadership tells PaperCity. Nunez, a proven athletic director at New Mexico who showed major fundraising prowess there and at LSU, earned the job over fellow final two finalist Ryan Alpert, the 36-year-old wunderkind chief revenue officer at the University of Tennessee.

Nunez will be officially announced soon, maybe as early as later today, PaperCity is told. The final decision between Nunez and Alpert turned out to be a tough one, according to the source close to UH leadership with University of Houston chancellor Renu Khator and Board of Regents chairman Tilman Fertitta highly impressed with both Nunez and Alpert.

Nunez’s record of building a complete athletic program, one that won big in a number of sports at New Mexico, and his long run (14 years) at Power 5 SEC LSU helped push him over the top. Nunez, a former basketball player at the University of Florida under Billy Donovan who hired Richard Pitino at New Mexico, connected strongly with UH basketball coach Kelvin Sampson. Sampson is very much on board with Nunez being the hire, a source close to the coach tells PaperCity.

When Eddie Nunez first took the University of New Mexico athletic director job seven years ago, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey singled Nunez out as a rising star in the industry. Now Nunez takes over a Power 5 program in the fourth largest city in the United States.

Nunez does it having built a culture of winning at New Mexico across the board, including success in a number of women’s sports, with the Lobos having won a national championship (in women’s cross country), captured 22 conference titles and made 53 NCAA Tournament appearances during his run in Albuquerque. Nunez balances that with major fundraising skills, having help drive $400 million in facility renovations and construction projects at LSU. He also worked out a 10-year multi-media rights agreement with Outfront Media Sports for LSU athletics.

Having first started his athletics administration career at Vanderbilt University, Nunez now takes over a Houston athletic program that needs new direction as it tries to establish itself as a program that can compete across the board in the Big 12. Nunez inherits one of the best men’s basketball programs in the entire country with Kelvin Sampson rolling (and Kellen Sampson set up as the clear successor). He gets Willie Fritz, the first-year football coach who’s quickly built enthusiasm around the program that had been lacking, but still faces a major rebuild.

Nunez’s first major mission will be coming up with ways to close the spending gap between University of Houston athletics and its Big 12 competitors.