Gloria Nevarez, a 27-year veteran of intercollegiate athletics, is the second Commissioner in the history of the Mountain West Conference. She began her tenure on Jan. 1, 2023.
Nevarez can count several accomplishments from her first year-plus at the helm of the Mountain West. With the culmination of nearly a year of work and planning, Nevarez celebrated her first anniversary at the Mountain West with the release of a comprehensive strategic plan in January 2024. The five-year strategic plan, “Ascend Together: Our Path to Excellence,” establishes the league’s core values-based principles – Competitive Excellence, Academic Achievement, Integrity, Relentless Drive, and Community and Inclusion.
When conference realignment swept Division I again in 2023, Nevarez orchestrated a football scheduling agreement with Pac-12 schools Oregon State and Washington State, helping the Mountain West expand its footprint and enhance its national brand.
Nevarez also initiated significant data benchmarking and rapid threatcasting projects designed to elevate the overall strength of the Mountain West and which have concurrently positioned the Mountain West for success in the rapidly evolving intercollegiate athletics landscape.
She also spearheaded the addition of women’s gymnastics as the Conference’s 19th sport for the 2023-24 academic year.
Nevarez currently serves as the Mountain West representative on the College Football Playoff (CFP) Management Committee. In addition, she sits on the Board of Directors for Women Leaders in Sports, serving as president for 2024-25.
Nevarez came from the West Coast Conference (WCC), where she served as Commissioner since 2018. While at the WCC, Nevarez shaped nearly every facet of the internal and external operations of the WCC. She directed significant overhauls to the conference’s branding, expanding the league’s national television contracts, adding a long-term title sponsor for the men’s and women’s basketball tournaments, and launching groundbreaking social justice initiatives.
After an exhaustive and collaborative six-month review with WCC stakeholders, the brand, reflective of the mission and values of the WCC schools was refreshed with a new brand identity. The WCC also embarked on a comprehensive rebranding initiative to bring consistency across all platforms. In her second full year on the job, Nevarez renegotiated the media rights agreement for the conference, resulting in unprecedented levels of national exposure for the league, including an updated eight-year agreement with ESPN and the addition of two national television partners in CBS Sports and Stadium. The exposure of WCC’s men’s basketball has nearly doubled from coast-to-coast.
The WCC became the first Division I conference to adopt a diversity hiring initiative with the groundbreaking “Russell Rule” adopted in July 2020. The “Russell Rule” required 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.
Before her commissioner role at the WCC, Nevarez had a successful stint as the Senior Associate Commissioner, Senior Woman Administrator at the Pac-12 Conference. In her role at the Pac-12, Nevarez oversaw all conference sports and championships except football. She also served as the conference liaison for men’s basketball and tournament director of the men’s basketball tournament in Las Vegas. Nevarez led all-star teams to China and Australia and brought conference teams to China for the first-ever NCAA regular-season game. During her tenure at the Pac-12, Nevarez was instrumental in league expansion, the relocation and success of both the men’s and women’s basketball tournaments, the creation and operation of the Pac-12 Networks, the development of international initiatives, and advanced the conference’s sustainability efforts.
Prior to joining what was then the Pac-10 staff, Nevarez served as Senior Associate Athletic Director at the University of Oklahoma. Her responsibilities were wide-ranging, including sport administration duties and overseeing the department’s strength and conditioning, marketing, and human resources units. She also served as the sport administrator for men’s and women’s basketball, men’s and women’s cross country, soccer, men’s and women’s track and field, softball, and women’s rowing. Nevarez served Oklahoma as the senior woman administrator and oversaw the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, the department’s Staff Council, Title IX compliance, and worked with the fundraising group, the Sooner Stilettos.
Before her time at Oklahoma, Nevarez spent five years working in compliance at the WCC, joining the conference in January 2002. During her first stint at the WCC, her primary emphasis was to direct the conference’s compliance efforts. In that role, she was involved in education efforts at all member institutions and the league office. She assisted the schools with their certification efforts, violations, waivers, and rule interpretations.
Prior to the WCC, Nevarez was at the University of California, where she served in multiple roles. She was the lone compliance officer and served as an executive officer for the department and its 29 intercollegiate athletics teams. She conducted NCAA and Pac-10 rules education workshops for student-athletes, coaches, and department staff on an annual basis. Nevarez was also involved with legal matters involving the department, including lawsuits, serving as the department’s campus liaison. She was responsible for processing all departmental contracts, including game contracts, and served as the department’s campus contact for all athletic-related contracts. Her efforts at Cal went beyond the legal realm as she served as co-coordinator of the team that conceived and ran the first Cy-Bear auction, the first time a collegiate entity had partnered with an online group – Yahoo! – to host an online auction, raising more than $180,000.
Nevarez began her athletics administrative career at San José State University, where she was the first full-time Director of Compliance in school history and developed and implemented an NCAA compliance program.
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.
Nevarez received her Juris Doctorate from the University of California. A four-year scholarship athlete and letterwinner in basketball at the University of Massachusetts, she graduated cum laude from UMass. While a student, Nevarez served on the La Raza Law Journal and was a co-founder of the Boalt Hall Sport and Entertainment Law Society. She served on the board of advisors for the UMass sports management department, a division of the Isenberg School of Business. In June 2023, UMass announced that Nevarez would be honored with the Elaine Sortino Alumna Award for Achievement during the school’s 2023 Hall of Fame enshrinement.
A native of Santa Clara, California, Nevarez is married to fellow Berkeley Law graduate Richard Young.