Renu Khator Wants to Double Houston’s Athletics Budget — Why She and Billionaire Tilman Fertitta Are Convinced New UH Athletic Director Eddie Nuñez Can Make It Happen

Renu Khator and Tilman Fertitta share an overriding passion, a compulsion really, for thinking big and not letting any obstacle stand in the way. Be it man, object or circumstance. In many ways, this what links University of Houston’s transformative chancellor and president and the self-made billionaire who’s adopted this university that lets so many chart their own path in life with 44 percent of UH’s students the first in their families to attend college. This relentless pushing is why the University of Houston became a Tier One research institute (a drive Khator started as soon as she stepped foot on campus). Why it boasts a medical school. Why it is in the Big 12 (with Fertitta absolutely refusing to let UH be passed over again in another round of Power 4 expansion and having the clout to stop that). It is also why Eddie Nuñez is the new athletic director at the University of Houston, set to be formally introduced on Wednesday in the plush club of a stadium that didn’t exist a decade ago. (TDECU Stadium turns 10 on August 29th.)

For Renu Khator has another wild mission in mind, one some will no doubt dismiss as unrealistic. One she is now convinced that Eddie Nuñez can spearhead into existence.

“I want to see our budget double for athletics,” Khator tells PaperCity. “That’s not something we’re going to be able to do on the backs of our students. We won’t do that. It’s not something we can do with just our donors and alumni. It’s something that’s going to take tapping into all the corporate resources out there in Houston and nationally, building bridges in this city the likes of which haven’t been built before, crafting unique partnerships, being creative and innovative and never giving up.

“I believe Eddie can help get us there, take us to a new level at a critical time in the history of college athletics and this university.”

When Khator talks about the drive to double Houston’s athletics budget — which stood at $81.5 million in 2022-23, dead last among Power 4 conference schools — she somewhat surprisingly does not mention one of UH’s struggling sports programs. Or even college king football, which is entering the first season of a Willie Fritz overhaul. Instead, she brings up Kelvin Sampson, the relentless driving creator of one of the truly nationally elite basketball programs in the country, first.

“What Kelvin Sampson has done with the basketball program, where he’s put us, is incredible, amazing,” Khator says. “And he’s done it with not a whole lot of resources. We need to get Kelvin more of what he needs. Kelvin is very important to us. All our coaches are important to us. And we need to get them what they need to have every chance to be successful.”

Khator walked away from her very first meeting with Nuñez, relatively early in the athletic director search, struck by the New Mexico AD’s fire and passion. “I felt it the first time he walked in and sat down with us,” Khator tells PaperCity. “But I held my judgement. I kept an open mind. I continued to talk to him (in the days and weeks that followed). I’d reach out and ask him how he’d handle an issue we’re facing or how he’d resolve a dilemma presented by the drastic changes college athletics are undergoing.”

Khator wanted to see how Nuñez thinks, how he problem solves, if he’d ever lean on excuses. Something Khator and Fertitta both hate with the unbridled loathing Zack Snyder has for seeing one of his movies cut. The quickest way to lose Fertitta and Khator’s interest is to waste their time and make excuses for why something cannot be done. Or offer why you’re not ready to tackle something yet.

In all their talks during the search, Nuñez never does that. As Fertitta and Khator continued their extensive search, looking at other candidates with University of Tennessee’s 36-year-old chief revenue officer Ryan Alpert emerging as a serious final two finalist, Khator kept going back to those talks with Nuñez, the “fire in the belly,” proven athletic director.

“I felt convinced he was the right person,” Khator says. The UH decision makers scraped any plans of waiting till next week to decide. Certain in Nuñez, the five year contract was worked out.

In some ways, Eddie Nuñez refused to let Khator and Fertitta hire someone else to be Houston’s new athletic director. He was that convincing, his answers that sure and soaked in details.

“We heavily vetted him,” Fertitta says. “We vetted everyone extensively. That’s why this (search) took so long.”

Fertitta cautions to not just look at Nuñez’s seven years as the University of New Mexico’s AD (which saw the Lobos win 22 conference championships and make 53 NCAA Tournament appearances across a wide variety of sports) or even his 14-year run at LSU, during which he helped lead $400 million in facility renovations and new construction. Fertitta also cites Nuñez’s time at Florida where he played basketball for Billy Donovan and later served as the national championship winning coach’s grad assistant. And his start in athletics administration at Vanderbilt, an elite academic private school.

“He’s been at the biggest of the big athletic schools and at private schools,” Fertitta tells PaperCity. “All the experiences he’s had give him a unique perspective. He looks at things in different ways to find a solution. That helped set him apart. We wanted somebody who had something different to offer.

“At the same time, he’s still been an AD for seven years. He’s been a boss.”

In some ways, Eddie Nuñez refused to let Khator and Fertitta hire someone else to be Houston’s new athletic director. He was that convincing, his answers that sure and soaked in details.

Eddie Nuñez and Decisive Decision Making

At New Mexico, Eddie Nuñez showed he’s not afraid to replace coaches. He scooped up Richard Pitino as the Lobos’ basketball coach the day after Pitino was let go by Minnesota, not giving any other schools time to get involved. He hired experienced turnaround artist Bronco Mendenhall to coach New Mexico’s football team this offseason. With the 57-year-0ld Mendenhall about the same age Kelvin Sampson was when UH hired him.

Fertitta and Khator wanted a decisive decision maker in Houston’s AD office. The billionaire who carried around his grandfather’s briefcase as a little kid and told people he had his business plans in there, later trading stocks in high school history class, and the pioneering university president, the first (and still only) female chancellor in Texas who helped teach herself English while growing up in India, see another grinder in Eddie Nuñez.

“We’re at a very critical point in our athletics program, having just joined a Power 4 (this will be UH’s second year in the Big 12),” Khator tells PaperCity. “We need someone who’s going to be competitive, someone who’s going to roll up his sleeves and get his hands dirty, someone who’s not afraid of work, to develop this department to where it needs to be.

“His commitment to getting things done, his understanding of the whole athletics program, his compassion for the student athletes and doing right by them, the way he talks about that. . . I know this guy is going to work and work to make us much better. That’s who he is.”

As Fertitta and Khator continued their extensive search, looking at other candidates with University of Tennessee’s 36-year-old chief revenue officer Ryan Alpert emerging as a serious final two finalist, Khator kept going back to those talks with Nuñez, the “fire in the belly,” proven athletic director.

Tilman Fertitta and Renu Khator both feel strongly enough about Eddie Nuñez to do separate one-on-one phone interviews with PaperCity on a Saturday evening, each calling back on their own.

Doubling the budget of University of Houston athletics program without leaning on the usual sources that have carried the weight in the past. . . Many people didn’t think the University of Houston would ever have its own medical school either not long ago. Plenty of pushing and a $50 million gift from Fertitta and his family later and that school’s going strong. Now Khator and Fertitta are turning to Eddie Nuñez to lead what they’re counting on being another transformative push.

“We think Eddie can get things done,” Fertitta says.

Think big. And make it happen.