What's going on with the search for UNM's next athletic director? Here's what we know.

Eddie Nuñez landed the job of athletic director at the University of Houston on Aug. 17.

The 51 days since the news that he would be leaving Albuquerque have been, well, eventful, to say the least, for the University of New Mexico and Lobo Athletics specifically because conference realignment took the Mountain West conference to the brink of extinction and back.

Meanwhile, the search for Nuñez’s permanent replacement (Deputy AD Dave Williams has been serving as interim AD) has been quiet. In fact, the job has yet to be posted on the school’s website and a search committee, though informally formed the Journal has learned, has yet to be formally named by UNM.

But that doesn’t mean the process hasn’t begun, however slow it may be; and that doesn’t mean plenty of candidates haven’t already begun pursuing the gig, just not through UNM at this point.

UNM President Garnett S. Stokes, who has not spoken publicly about the search short of a statement thanking Nuñez and stating a national search would be conducted, last month hired a familiar head-hunting firm, Atlanta-based Parker Executive Search, to run the search for $60,000 — half paid in September and the other half upon “hiring of the successful candidate.”

Parker last week posted the UNM AD job on its site and on certain industry sites.

Parker, armed with a database of hundreds of candidate names, has closed nearly a dozen AD searches in 2024 alone. It’s the same firm that placed Nuñez at UNM in 2017 and that one Nuñez used just last year, at a cost of $60,000, to perform background checks of candidates for the Lobo football coach.

The firm also helped in the 2022 hiring of Gloria Nevarez as Mountain West commissioner.

TIMELINE: The contract between Parker and UNM, reviewed by the Journal, was signed Sept. 9.

It is unclear if that was deemed the start of the search, which is a significant, though thus far unanswered, detail, because of the “proposed draft timeline” Parker submitted.

According to that timeline, the firm would meet with the search committee within five days “from the start of the search” to discuss expectations of candidates.

Ten days after the start of the search, the job would be posted on Parker’s website (it was posted last week) and on UNM’s website (it had not appeared as of Monday).

The search committee was to be given an update at the 17-day mark and have Parker’s initial list of six to eight candidates on Day 23.

By Day 35 or 36, the committee would conduct initial interviews and finalists would be interviewed on Days 42-44 with Stokes naming the new AD on Day 45 after the search’s official “start” date.

THE JOB: The three-page athletic director job posting on Parker’s website includes background on UNM, background on UNM Athletics and its place in the Mountain West with mostly expected bullet points under “duties and responsibilities.”

Nuñez was paid $520,000 annually on his last contract at UNM. The current job posting does not mention a salary range.

All candidates are to submit their applications to Parker, which owns all résumés and candidate information until the finalists level, at which time those names are deemed public record.

FAMILIAR PARKER: Parker Executive Search, armed with a database of hundreds of candidate names, has closed nearly a dozen AD searches in 2024 alone. It’s the same firm that placed Nuñez at UNM in 2017 and that one Nuñez used just last year, at a cost of $60,000, to perform background checks of candidates for the Lobo football coach.

The firm also helped in the 2022 hiring of Gloria Nevarez as Mountain West commissioner.

Parker Executive Search is no stranger to Stokes, UNM or UNM Athletics. It was behind the 2017 search that landed Nuñez at UNM — a search that also included interviewing NMSU AD Mario Moccia and fellow Nuñez finalists Tom Michael, Athletic Director at Eastern Illinois, and DeWayne Peevy, then the Deputy AD at Kentucky and currently the Athletic Director at DePaul.

Parker has been used other times by UNM, including last year when it was paid $60,000 to perform background checks of candidates for the Lobo football search.

In a proposal to earn a contract with one Florida university as far back as 2013, Parker listed Stokes, then Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs at Florida State University, as a reference. It also helped in the 2022 hiring of Gloria Nevarez as Mountain West Commissioner.

The firm is one of the more well known in college executive searches — both academia and athletics related — and conducts more than just athletics-related searches.

Parker’s currently posted executive searches in the university space include 15 under the academia or health sciences umbrella and five in college athletics: UNM’s AD spot along with the same position at Villanova, University of Illinois-Chicago and Division III Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, and one coaching search job: head women’s lacrosse coach at Division III Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

In addition to the three Division I level searches it is currently working (UNM, Villanova and UIC), the firm just in 2024 has had some part in closing the searches for ADs at Stanford, George Washington, University of Maryland Baltimore County, Memphis, Washington, American University, Nebraska, San Diego, Louisiana Tech, Wofford and Tarleton State.