| Athletic Scholarships?
UTEP losing associate athletic director
Darren Hunt
El Paso Times
UTEP soon will be faced with replacing one of its associate athletic directors at the school.
Kevin Hatcher, associate AD for administration and university relations and UTEP's former compliance director, has accepted a job as the No. 2 man in charge of the Colgate University athletic department.
"I actually tried to hire him four or five years ago when I was the AD at Brown," said Colgate athletic director Dave Roach, who confirmed Friday that he has reached a deal with Hatcher as his new senior associate for external and internal relations. "We have always stayed in touch and I've always been impressed with (Hatcher's) background, his experience and his manner of doing things."
Hatcher said his duties at UTEP included supervising the track and field program, women's tennis, women's soccer and the compliance department.
He also was in charge of the UTEP track and field and athletic hall of fames and the varsity club, for ex-student-athletes.
Roach said Colgate, one of the top academic institutions in the country, just added athletic scholarships last year. Hatcher, who was hired at UTEP in the spring of 2000, is expected to aid in that transition at the Hamilton, N.Y., school.
"There's a lot of groundwork to lay in terms of educating people about scholarships," Roach said, "and (Hatcher) is a perfect fit to get things going."
Hatcher, whose goal is to be an athletic director someday, said he found it difficult to turn down an opportunity to become Roach's right-hand man at Colgate.
"I'm most excited about working with (Roach) and at a school like Colgate," Hatcher said, "but leaving UTEP is bittersweet for me. There are no fans in the country like UTEP fans."
Hatcher's last day at UTEP is Tuesday. He said he begins his new job at Colgate on July 11.
"I've been through a lot here the past five years -- from no facilities to what we have now," Hatcher said. "It's tough to leave, especially since we're on the verge of the best football season in the history of our school. And that's why it's bittersweet."
UTEP is expected to advertise the position nationally before filling it sometime this summer.
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