Erick Harper is in his fourth year leading Rebel Athletics after being selected as UNLV’s 14th permanent Director of Athletics on Jan. 1, 2022. Harper served as UNLV’s Interim Director of Athletics from August 16, 2021 to December 31, 2021.
As UNLV’s AD, Harper oversees all aspects of the athletics department and the Thomas & Mack Center, including general operations, fiscal affairs, facilities, strategic planning, and external relations.
“Erick has a strong track record in intercollegiate athletics and tremendous passion for our university, our student-athletes, and our coaches,” said UNLV President Keith E. Whitfield when he announced the appointment. “He’s also vested in our community and has a vision for the program that I believe will continue the momentum we’ve built and lead us to new levels of success in all areas of Rebel athletics.”
In his first two and a half years on the job, Harper has affected significant change. Under his leadership, a new strategic plan was announced in September 2022 that is aimed at helping deliver a premier student-athlete experience in college athletics and providing Rebels the opportunity to succeed as students, athletes, and into the future as well-rounded community leaders. In alignment with the broader UNLV Top Tier 2.0 Strategic Plan, the athletics department worked in tandem with the University to develop a clear strategy for achieving athletic and academic excellence.
The Rebels have excelled in both of those areas with Harper at the helm. In just three seasons, 13 UNLV teams have claimed conference championships, with 10 league Coach of the Year honorees and multiple teams earning trips to the NCAA Tournament. In addition, UNLV took back the annual Silver State Series trophy during the 2022-23 season by recording the third-highest score in the history of the competition, which is a formal head-to-head athletic and academic challenge between longtime rivals UNLV and UNR. The Rebels again claimed victory against UNR in 2023-24.
Following the Spring 2024 semester, UNLV student-athletes earned a collective grade point average of 3.0 or higher for a record 14th-straight semester. In addition, under Harper’s watch, UNLV’s student-athlete graduation rate has risen to a record 88% and its Multi-Year Academic Progress Rate also set a record with a score of 987.
Fundraising has been a major focus under Harper as well. The department has received hundreds of major gifts from individuals since he took over, benefitting student-athlete scholarships, health and mental wellness, nutrition, academic support and capital projects. Corporations have also donated towards new facility projects and renovations, including new practice field turf at the Fertitta Football Complex, new lighting at the Thomas & Mack Center and Cox Pavilion, new scoreboards at Eller Media Stadium (softball) and Peter Johann Memorial Field (soccer) and the renovation of the Lied Athletic Complex to include the Switch Sports Science Studio.
The department launched its first-ever athletics-specific capital campaign in 2023 with a goal of $150 million, called “Rebel Up” and in less than a year received more than $15 million with donations from Boyd Gaming and the Boyd Family, the NFL’s Las Vegas Raiders Foundation, Diana Bennett and others. In addition, the athletics department provided Alston money to its student-athletes for the first time during the 2023-24 school year. In September 2024, UNLV Athletics will launch the Rebels EmpowHer Career Development Program for Women’s Sports, presented by Diana Bennett.
The capital campaign is designed to enhance many areas within UNLV Athletics, including the student-athlete experience, provide funding for new facilities, elevate current facilities, and build a stronger endowment program. Additional commitments have created positive momentum for the campaign, including $6.5 million for a multi-use indoor practice facility, $1 million (unrestricted) and more than $1.5 million in new endowments.
Harper has hired eight new head coaches in the sports of football, men’s golf, men’s soccer, men’s & women’s swimming & diving, men’s tennis, women’s tennis, track & field/cross country and volleyball. His hire of Barry Odom marked the first for UNLV football with previous head coaching experience on the FBS level since College Football Hall of Famer John Robinson led the Rebels from 1999-2004. In year one, Odom led the Rebels to the Mountain West regular-season co-championship and its first bowl appearance in a decade.
Under Harper’s direction, UNLV Athletics also announced that the Rebels’ long-standing multimedia relationship with Learfield was expanded, which provides the department with guaranteed revenue through the 2029-30 season, while a new partnership with its Amplify division provides opportunity to accelerate revenue generation through ticketing, premium sales and philanthropy.
Harper also brought back the UNLV Athletics Hall of Fame induction ceremony for the first time in six years, inducting a new class in 2022 and again in 2024.
One of the first items Harper implemented after being named permanent AD was adding “empathy” as a core value of the UNLV Athletics Department to the pre-existing values of accountability, excellence, innovation, integrity and service. He also introduced the first-ever tuition giveaway to students through the use of a T-shirt cannon during a timeout at a basketball game with the university’s president at the controls.
Being a productive member of the community and giving back is important to Harper as he has shown in numerous ways, but most notably was through the athletics department’s hosting of a Bed Build Day in 2022 in the parking lot of the Thomas & Mack Center. Partnering with nonprofit Sleep in Heavenly Peace, 100 beds were built to help Las Vegas youth that needed a comfortable place to sleep. The department participated again in April of 2024, improving the record number of bends made to 103.
Harper was recently appointed to the NCAA Division I Football Oversight Committee and was named Administrator of the Year for 2023-24 by The Leadership Playbook. He served on the 2024 Super Bowl Host Committee board and is an active board member on the Las Vegas Bowl Committee and MW Recognition Committee. He also served as the Mountain West Directors of Athletics’ Chair for 2023-24. Harper was recently selected to serve as liaison for the Football Oversight Committee with the Football Student-Athlete Connection Group (FSACG) and will also serve on the Football Bowl Subdivision and Football Championship Oversight Committees’ Playing and Practice Season Subgroup.
The subgroup will conduct a comprehensive review of football’s playing season including preseason, first contest date (including contests during week zero), in-season activities, out-of-season conditioning, spring football and summer athletics activities, and make recommendations to the football oversight committees no later than March 26, 2025. The subgroup is anticipated to meet up to two times per month during one-hour video conferences from September 2024 until June 2025.
Prior to becoming Director of Athletics, Harper served nine years as UNLV’s senior associate athletics director for development. Harper has been in university athletics administration for more than 30 years. He joined UNLV as associate athletics director for development in 2012. In that role, he oversaw fundraising efforts for the department and served as a sport administrator for multiple sports, including football and women’s golf.
Prior to UNLV, Harper was associate athletics director for football operations at the University of Arizona from 2003-11. He began his athletics administrative career at Kansas State University (1990-2003), where he served in development, marketing, and compliance roles and as a sport administrator for multiple sports.
Harper earned his bachelor’s degree in 1992 from Kansas State, where he was a four-year starter and standout defensive back for the Wildcats football team. He later earned a master’s in organizational management and leadership from Ashford University in 2013.
Harper and his wife, Dr. Patrice Hester-Harper, who holds three degrees (bachelor’s, master’s, PhD) from UNLV and is currently associate vice president for development and principal gifts for the university, have two daughters, Sydney (17) and Avery (8).
