Ski Coach Richard Rokos and Colorado athletic director Rick George pose for a photo with the 2015 NCAA National Championship trophy during half time at the Coors Events Center. (Nigel Amstock/CU Independent)
On March 20, the University of Colorado Boulder’s Rick George was named the 2023-24 Athletic Director of the Year by the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics. The NACDA is in its 59th year with 22,000 athletic administrators across 2,200 institutions and is the largest gathering of college athletic staff in the country. George was named CU Boulder’s sixth-ever athletic director in 2013, and since then has overseen the school’s massive athletic department growth.
Both the men’s and women’s basketball teams finished with successful 2023-24 seasons, with the men’s team finishing with their most amount of wins in a season and the women’s team reaching a No. 3 ranking in the country and making the March Madness Sweet Sixteen for the second year in a row. Much of the university’s recent success also came from George’s hiring of head football coach Deion Sanders in December 2022, which preceded a record-breaking year in ticket sales and viewership for the football team.
“I felt like it was a moment in time that we had to get it right without question,” George said of his decision to hire Sanders, one year later. “We were at a moment that, if we got it wrong and Colorado wasn’t relevant, then it might be very difficult to recover. There’s no doubt I felt the enormity of the decision. If we didn’t make the right hire, we could have been irrelevant.”
George has had a long history with the Buffaloes before this most recent hiring, in the late 1980s he had a hand in the football team’s sole national championship. From 1987-1989, George was the recruiting coordinator under then-head football coach Bill McCartney. He was promoted to assistant athletic director for football operations the following year, and the team went 11-1-1 to clinch the 1990 national championship. George then left CU Boulder for multiple other jobs at Vanderbilt University, ForeKids! Foundation, the PGA Tour and the Texas Rangers before returning to the Buffaloes 23 years later.
Under George, CU Boulder’s football program saw unprecedented growth and national attention in the 2023 season. The Buffaloes sold out their spring football game and all six home games for the first time in history. The Buffaloes had six of the 50 most-watched college football games of the year. CU Boulder also hosted a football pregame show for the first time in 28 seasons, as Fox’s Big Noon Kickoff spent three weeks at Farrand Field and ESPN’s College Gameday took over the Business Field for the Buffaloes Week 3 overtime win against Colorado State.
“That was something I don’t think any of us could have truly predicted,” George said. “But I do know that when I talked to Coach Prime, he said, ‘Hey, this is going to be big.’ I said OK — but I didn’t know it was going to be this big. He [Sanders] knew what was coming.”
George was named to the National Football Foundation’s “Team of Excellence” in 2019 and won an award for leading sustainability programs in the athletic department. He has also been named the CU’s Staff Member of the Year three times by the school’s Student-Athlete Advisory Committee in 2014, 2018 and 2020. George was also given an “Honorary C” by CU’s Alumni C Club in 2016.
After being hired in late 2013, George’s contract was extended by CU Boulder’s Board of Regents in 2016. In 2019 he signed another extension through the 2023-24 school year, but that was quickly shadowed. In 2021, George signed a five-year extension to go through the end of the 2025-26 school year, with a $1 million a year base salary as well as multiple bonus opportunities.
Throughout the past 11 years, CU Boulder’s athletic department has grown immensely with George at the helm. Whether it be the construction of the Champions Center on CU Boulder’s campus, the success of the school’s football, basketball, soccer, lacrosse, skiing and cross-country teams, or the countless new eyes set on CU Boulder, the growth under George has been undeniable.
Contact CU Independent Assistant Sports Editor Eli Gregorski at elgr9735@colorado.edu.
