Thrown in the fire: Fernando Lovo on a frantic first four months as UNM athletic director

Fernando Lovo is pretty much a regular Burqueño at this point.

The 134-day veteran of the University of New Mexico Athletic Department already knows the basics like Colorado chile can’t hold a candle to New Mexico chile, if he doesn’t like the weather he just needs to wait 15 minutes and probably even has a Zia symbol tattoo somewhere.

Officially starting as UNM’s vice president for athletics on Dec. 1, the 36-year-old Lovo, who came from the University of Texas, hasn’t been afforded the luxury of easing into much of anything.

His crash course has included:

• Losing a football coach, launching a national search for a new one, hiring Jason Eck

• Spending countless hours lobbying at the 60-day Legislative session in Santa Fe, trying to secure millions in state funding for Lobo Athletics

• Losing Deputy Athletic Director David Williams

• Moving his family from Austin — “17 hours with two kids and a dog in the back seat, going 50 miles per hour with a U-Haul trailer attached to the back,” as he fondly recalls it

• Losing a basketball coach, launching a national search for a new one, hiring Eric Olen

The guy has been busy.

In an in-depth 40-minute conversation on Episode 103 of the Talking Grammer podcast, Lovo talks about dealing with pressure, his two high-profile hires, the pride in the UNM Athletic Department, learning New Mexico politics, windy days and crowded townhouse living.

Here are some excerpts from the podcast, which can be viewed in its entirety on the Journal’s YouTube page or in audio form wherever you download podcasts.

JOURNAL: Lovo is a first-time athletic director; Eck is a first-time FBS head coach; and Olen coached primarily at Division II UC San Diego before it recently transitioned to D-I. How much pressure is on the three of them to prove themselves as they tackle jobs at new levels?

LOVO: “I’ll be honest, I feel pressure every day, and that’s a privilege. If there wasn’t pressure in a job like this, then it wouldn’t matter, and I know it matters to a lot of people, and so I embrace that.

“One thing that I know is, and I learned this from Coach (Urban) Meyer, is winners win. You know that the best predictor of success is winning. And when you look at Eric, he was a coach for over a decade — a head coach for over a decade — and has won 68% of his games. … Coach Olen’s a winner. And that was so abundantly clear to me throughout the process. …

“We all have extremely high expectations, and with every hire comes risk and reward, but the one thing that I know is you always trust your gut, you look and you rely on people in the industry that you know, that you trust and really understand it and I’m fortunate to say that for both positions, both football and basketball, we had an incredible candidate pool. And we were able to hire winners that are great people that want to be at New Mexico, that love it here. …

“We’ve done that with Eric. We’ve done that with Jason. And I am very confident that they’re going to win games and they’re going to do it the right way.”

While Lovo has been on the job since December, his family — wife and two young kids under age 5 and a family dog — didn’t move until mid-March. And they don’t move into their new house for a few more weeks.

“We’re kind of piled all on top of each other in a little town home, and it’s been really good bonding time.

“We went three and a half months of not seeing each other, and now we’re just … we’re making up for it every second of the day.”

On learning the New Mexico political process and lobbying in Santa Fe for state funding for Lobo athletics.

“I forget who told me, but early on when I got here, someone said, if you want to get your PhD in politics, go to the Roundhouse. And I said, alright. Let’s get going. …

“For me to be able to go up there and go into the Roundhouse and really walk around and introduce myself to our wonderful state legislators and talk to them, not necessarily about what we need financially, but more so what the impact of New Mexico Athletics, what it has on this great state — economically, socially, just spiritually, for a lot of people. I mean, you look at people in the Pit (after clinching the Mountain West championship) and you see them crying, laughing, hugging. It means so much to this state.

“So, a partnership between us and our politicians is critical. We can’t survive without it, but before we start that and talking about resources, I wanted to make sure that they heard from me what my vision was, how important it was for us to partner and really have them understand … what the impact that athletics has on the greater state of New Mexico.”

Is the financial situation at UNM and in New Mexico what you thought it would be?

“I knew that we were in a position in time where — really across the board, all athletic departments are having these same discussions — it’s how do we advance ourselves? What are our goals? And how do we reach those goals? …

“And so I knew that we were going to have to push, that we were going to have to be bold. I say all the time, fortune favors the bold, and that comes with resources and finances. And so as we’re looking at it and we’re planning two, three, four, five years in advance. We understand where we are now, and we know where we want to go, and we’re very open and honest and transparent about that. We’re winning championships now, and when we continue to grow our resources and provide our sports and coaches with what they need, I think that the sky is the limit for what we can do.”

On his family’s first day in New Mexico in mid-March — one of the windiest days of the year.

“(His wife, Jordan) went to the grocery and she called me when she was on the way out, and I could barely hear. The wind was blowing in the phone. And I was like, ‘Hello? Hello?’

“She goes, ‘Hey. I just want to let you know that the folks that are pushing the carts in are wearing goggles.’

“And I’m like, ‘What? They’re wearing goggles?’

“She’s like, ‘Yeah, the dust is blowing everywhere.’

“We were both laughing on the phone. I was like, welcome to the Land of Enchantment. … that was Day 1 in Albuquerque. It was awesome.”