Gloria Nevarez has been named the next commissioner of the Mountain West conference. She will succeed retiring longtime commissioner Craig Thompson on Jan. 1, 2023. Here’s what you should know.
- Nevarez has spent the past four years as the commissioner of the West Coast Conference, and before that, she worked as a senior associate commissioner at the Pac-12 conference.
- Other previous campus stops over the course of a 25-year career in college sports include Oklahoma, Cal and San Jose State.
- She has also held prestigious leadership roles during the current period of NCAA reform, serving on both the Constitution Committee and the Division I Transformation Committee.
Here’s what you need to know:
Background
Nevarez’s background in various leagues based on the West Coast and her innovative leadership made her an attractive candidate for this position. She will be the first Latino commissioner of a Football Bowl Subdivision conference and just the second female FBS commissioner, joining Conference USA’s Judy MacLeod.
Previous accomplishments
During her time as WCC commissioner, Nevarez led the WCC to adopt Division I’s first diversity hiring initiative, the groundbreaking “Russell Rule” adopted in July of 2020, requiring all WCC schools to include a member of a…
