KTNV (LAS VEGAS) — Making things official.
It was an emotional day as Erick Harper was officially introduced as the next UNLV athletic director.
Erick Harper stated, “We will have a culture of built on trust, empathy, compassion, care, growth and accountability. We will have a championship culture that embraces a dedication to ensuring our student-athletes graduates and win championships at all levels.”
Harper brings three decades of experience in athletics. He’s someone who knows the UNLV landscape well as he’s been with the program serving as the senior associate athletic director for development for ten years.
“We want to make sure that we continue to build our brand," said Harper. "Create a way that everyone wants to be a part of UNLV not come here to leave. Come here to stay and become rooted in this community and just be a part of what we want to do every single day.”
It was also a historic day as Harper will take over as the school’s first black athletic director.
Harper added, “I just look at it at being an individual that just happens to be able to sit in this seat and lead this institutional department. That’s what my focus is. Black, white, green, red, orange. Doesn’t matter to me. We’re all in this together. We’re a very diverse institution.”
Harper plans on creating a winning tradition that honors the past and looks forward into the future.
“I mentioned we’re 365/24/7… it’s a opportunity for us to continue to impact and be a part of this community on a daily basis," added Harper. "We wanna tell our stories. We wanna build relationships with the media ,and we wanna spend time to just build our brand back to where it was in the 90s in all of our sports.”
