UNLV Rebels Athletic Director Erick Harper: "With High-Profile Coaches, Yeah It’s Stressful"

UNLV Rebels athletic director Erick Harper did an outstanding job bringing in both Dan Mullen and Josh Pastner this offseason to coach the football and men's basketball teams. However, a lot goes into that beyond just signing a coach. Harper recently spoke to Yahoo Sports' Dan Wolken about making the job attractive to coaches and dealing with the possibility of them leaving for a bigger job.

UNLV Rebels Athletic Director Erick Harper Credits Former UNLV Rebels Head Football Coach Barry Odom For Raising The Attractiveness Of The Football Job

“Barry made this a very attractive job,” Harper said.

Harper On Making Sure They Can Provide Coaches With Everything They Need

“In the transfer portal of college sports, a lot of times it's what's going on right now. Because, you know, no one looks to truly build anymore for four or five years. They're building for one, two and maybe three years.

So to go in and be worried about, whoever we hired, are they going to leave in two years? Well, let's do everything in our power to make sure that if and when somebody calls, they say, ‘I don't want anything to do with that because of what's being done here. Do we have the right NIL? Do we right rev share? Do we have the right assistant coaching pool? Do we have the right facilities? It’s not always about money, but at the same time, let's make sure that all the things that a coach needs to win are available for a coach to win.”

Harper On Dealing With The Possibility Of Coaches Leaving

“With high-profile coaches, yeah it’s stressful [to hear speculation]. But you have to, again, you have to always expect the unexpected, and even though that's a cliché, and be prepared to know what direction you want to go in if something happens, if somebody decides to take another job, or if you have to make a decision.

If something were to happen, I think it's still going to be important for us to find the right guy at the right time. Is it plug and play? You don't have to come in and ask for facilities, because we have those. What’s important for whoever the coach that we have is that they have the right tools to be able to do what they need to do based on who they are as a coach.”

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