Gloria Nevarez, a 25-year veteran of intercollegiate athletics, has been named the Commissioner of the Mountain West Conference (MWC), starting January 1, 2023.
Since 2018, Nevarez has served as the Commissioner of the West Coast Conference (WCC).
Nevarez previously worked at the Pac-12 Conference, the University of Oklahoma, the University of California Berkeley, San José State University and in an aforementioned prior stint with the WCC. She serves on the NCAA’s Division I Transformation Committee, the NIT Men’s Basketball selection committee and the NCAA Division 1 Men’s Basketball Oversight Committee, as well as on the Board of Directors of USA Basketball, Women Leaders in College Athletics and is a member of the Knight Commission.
Nevarez said she will not rest on the conference’s previous “successes.” She noted that “we will be aggressive, we will be innovative, we will be inclusive, and we will keep our focus on the student-athletes who call the Mountain West Conference home.”
Nevarez’ promise to be “inclusive” carries weight.
The WCC became the first Division I conference to adopt a diversity hiring initiative. The groundbreaking “Russell Rule,” adopted in July of 2020, requires all WCC schools to include a member of a traditionally underrepresented community in the final candidate pool for every athletic director, senior administrator, head coach and full-time assistant coaching search.
Prior to her start in collegiate athletics, Nevarez received her Juris Doctorate from the University of California a quarter-century ago. While a student, she served on the La Raza Law Journal and was a co-founder of the Boalt Hall Sport and Entertainment Law Society.
Upon graduation, she put that legal background to work as an NCAA compliance professional at various colleges and universities before embarking on greater and greater leadership roles.
A graduate of the NCAA Fellows Program and the NACWAA Executive Institute, Nevarez completed five years as an adjunct faculty member at the University of San Francisco’s Sport Management Master’s program, teaching sports law.
