UNLV names interim athletic director

UNLV senior associate athletic director Erick Harper has been elevated to interim athletic director, university president Keith E. Whitfield announced Friday morning.

Harper, at least in the short term, replaces Desiree Reed-Francois, who departed this week for the athletic director post at Missouri. He’s has worked in athletic administration for 31 years, spending the last nine with UNLV.

The university still plans on soliciting a search firm to conduct a national search to find a permanent athletic director. But Harper for the next “several months” will have the first opportunity to succeed Reed-Francois, who ran the school’s athletic department the last four years.

“Erick brings a wealth of experience in university athletics to the position, and I’m confident that he’ll successfully lead UNLV Athletics during this transition period,” Whitfield said in a statement. “He has great passion for our university, this community, our student-athletes and our coaches, and I believe he’s the right person at this time to lead our talented department staff and continue the positive momentum of UNLV Athletics.”

Harper began his tenure at UNLV in 2012 and most recently worked for the Rebel Athletic Fund staff. His responsibilities included “principal gifts, major gifts, trades, cars program. He was also the sport administrator for football and women’s golf. He was previously an athletic administrator at Arizona, where he worked from 2003 to 2011 as the associate athletic director for football operations.

He began his career in athletic administration at Kansas State, where he worked from 1990 to 2003 in a variety of roles, including development, marketing and compliance.

Harper was also a starting defensive back on Kansas State’s football team, for which he played from 1986 to 1989 — earning letters in all four years. He earned his bachelor’s degree in 1992 and has since added a master’s in organizational management and leadership from Ashford University.

“I’m incredibly honored to serve as UNLV’s interim director of athletics,” Harper said in a statement. “We have many great opportunities in front of us to continue growing our university and our athletics department, and to reach heights never imagined at UNLV. The time for UNLV to rise is now and together we can achieve great things.”

Contact reporter Sam Gordon at sgordon@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BySamGordon on Twitter.