Valley Children's Stadium photo via gobulldogs.com

Fresno State has chosen its new athletic director. 

Garrett Klassy, former deputy athletic director of the University of Houston, will be the next athletic director at Fresno State.

Thamel broke the news just before 7 a.m. in a tweet in which the ESPN writer announced that the University of Houston Deputy Athletic Director would be departing the school for the Central Valley.

The news was confirmed via a press release from Fresno State Friday morning.

“I am deeply excited at the opportunity to work with Garrett,” wrote President Jiménez-Sandoval. “He comes with an impressive background in athletics, and demonstrates integrity, intentional passion, and strategic energy. As he grew up on a dairy farm, he lives our values, understands our culture and illustrates our work ethic at the highest levels.”

 

A nearly 30-year veteran of collegiate athletics, he previously worked as the interim AD at Nebraska for four years and as the athletic director at the University of Illinois Chicago.

He’s also had stops at Alabama and Oregon.

At Houston, Klassey oversaw revenue generation units and initiatives while also working alongside other executive team members. 

In his role at Nebraska, he directed the day-to-day operations, providing leadership to revenue-generating, external operating units and sports performance areas. He also had administrative oversight for Cornhuskers Football and contributed to Men’s Basketball.

Klassy is an alumnus of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and George Washington University. He started his career in athletics ticketing at Wisconsin. 

He spent four years as the Assistant Director of Ticket Operations at Alabama. In 2005, Klassy joined the University of Oregon as Assistant Athletics Director for Development & Ticket Sales. At Oregon, Klassy was part of capital campaigns that built Matthew Knight Arena and the Hatfield-Dowlin Football Operations Center.

During his tenure at George Washington, Klassy coordinated strategic initiatives for Athletics External Relations and managed the $38 million athletic department operating budget. There, Klassy secured the largest gift in GW Athletics history, which was to build a clubhouse and training facility for GW Baseball.  

Klassy managed the fundraising for Nebraska’s $100 million GO BIG capital campaign to construct a new football operations facility. He orchestrated the Garth Brooks concert at Memorial Stadium, marking the venue’s first concert since 1987. The concert generated an estimated economic impact exceeding $10 million for the city of Lincoln.