From UNM hoops team manager to associate AD
East Mountain, Lobo alum Berryman, 26, earns his shot
Ryan Berryman was never really looking to be a college basketball coach.
And yet, pretty much since his 2011 graduation from East Mountain High, he’s been slowly working his way up the ladder on staff with the UNM men’s basketball team — a multiyear team manager, then lead manager, helping oversee numerous offseason camps and clinics through the years, taking a summer management internship with an NBA team, spending two years as a graduate assistant with the team and serving as the program’s director of operations the past several years.
But, parallel to all those hoops tasks, Berryman, 26, was also navigating an ambitious path into collegiate sports administration — serving for 17 months as the university’s student regent, earning a bachelor’s degree in marketing and operations management followed by a Masters in Business Administration from UNM’s Anderson School of Management along the way.
On Friday, Berryman’s hoops track came to an end at UNM, though he won’t be going far. The native New Mexican accepted a job across the street from Dreamstyle Arena — the Pit as UNM’s new associate athletic director in charge of business operations.
“We looked at a lot of candidates, and in every way Ryan was the right person to pick for this,” athletic director Eddie Nuñez told the Journal. He said a national search for the new position drew plenty of interest, but Berryman set himself apart with his institutional knowledge and skill set.
“To me, I don’t care about his age if he can
demonstrate the skill set and ability to get the job done the right way,” Nuñez said. “And Ryan has done that.”
Berryman, who declined comment after the announcement, will make $80,000 per year, the Journal has learned and leaves vacant the director of basketball operations gig. Head coach Paul Weir is away on vacation and not available to comment, but is also currently in need of an assistant coach after last month’s departure of former assistant Chris Harriman.
While Berryman is not replacing former athletics department chief financial officer Rob Robinson, who has been gone since January, he will take on some of his duties. Others have been shifted to UNM’s main campus financial gurus in a shared services plan that is supposed to help the beleaguered athletics department finally take control of years of budgetary shortfalls. He will also oversee much of the department’s travel issues and contracts with outside entities.
The team-specific budgets for the coming 2019-20 fiscal year are already in place, but one of Berryman’s roles will be working with coaches to make sure those stay on track. He will also serve as the liaison in many instances to main campus and university and state leaders who are keeping a close eye on the department’s finances.
As student regent, he was already part of several key decisions for athletics. In an October 2016 meeting, long before any fellow regent or the administration wanted such talk to be public, it was Berryman who asked former athletic director Paul Krebs in a public meeting if sports being cut was a possibility if the department could not get a grip on its finances.
And while UNM’s news release sent out Friday announcing the hire stated Berryman has been the program’s director of operations since January of 2017, he’s actually been manning those duties since December 2015. Then, as a graduate student and while serving as the student regent, he became acting operations director after former operations director Cody Hopkins was placed on leave. Hopkins’ contract wasn’t renewed and he is currently facing a pending trial accused of embezzling from the department while on staff under former head coach Craig Neal.
Berryman starts his new job next week.