Fresno State hires Houston’s deputy as athletics director, with a clear objective in mind

Robert Kuwada
·4 min read

Fresno State has hired its next athletics director, choosing University of Houston deputy AD Garrett Klassy, in part, because of his powerful track record in development and revenue-generation across a 30-year career in college athletics.

Klassy was in his first year at Houston, and, interestingly, is being hired by Fresno State in the same week that his boss, Houston athletics director Chris Pezman, was fired. Houston’s administration was reportedly frustrated with Pezman’s lack of progress in fundraising and sponsorships as the Cougars moved into the Big 12 Conference. The department in 2022-23 received 47% of its revenue through university support. At Fresno State, university support accounted for just 31% of athletics revenue that same year.

Fresno State has hired Garrett Klassy as its next athletics director. Klassy has spent the past year as deputy athletics director and chief revenue officer at Houston.
Fresno State has hired Garrett Klassy as its next athletics director. Klassy has spent the past year as deputy athletics director and chief revenue officer at Houston.

Klassy replaces Terry Tumey, who reached a mutual separation with the university in March.

A formal press conference at Fresno State is expected to be held next week.

“I am deeply excited at the opportunity to work with Garrett,” Fresno State president Saúl Jiménez-Sandoval said, in a statement from the athletics department. “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.”

Before moving to Houston in June 2023, Klassy spent four years at Nebraska where he was senior deputy athletics director and oversaw revenue generation and external operations units. He managed fundraising efforts for a $100 million capital campaign for the construction of a new football operations facility, and also established an in-house agency to manage the Cornhuskers’ multimedia rights and radio network.

Klassy has experience as an athletics director at Illinois-Chicago, where he re-branded athletics fund raising and landed a $10 million naming rights agreement for the basketball arena that included $750,000 for scholarships.

He also was an assistant athletics director at Oregon in 2005, working on capital campaigns for the Matthew Knight Arena and Hatfield-Dowlin Football Operations Center. Former Fresno State athletics director Jim Bartko was the Ducks’ associate athletics director for donor relations at that time.

“I am deeply honored and grateful to President Jiménez-Sandoval for the opportunity to lead Fresno State Athletics,” Klassy said. “This is an incredible moment for me and my family, and I am committed to working tirelessly to move Fresno State Athletics forward aggressively during this changing landscape of college athletics. I look forward to embracing the rich culture and values of the Central Valley, and I am excited to engage with the passionate Red Wave fan base. Together, we will build on our traditions and achieve new heights of success.”

At Fresno State, Klassy will take on a number of challenges starting with a crumbling Valley Children’s Stadium, an operating revenue deficit and anticipated changes to Division I athletics after the NCAA settled three federal antitrust cases that will open the door to revenue-sharing and paying student-athletes.

The Bulldogs’ financial crunch includes a cut in institutional support — it was trimmed to $15.5 million in 2022-23 from $18.1 million in 2021-22 — and is expected to be trimmed again this year with the California State University system and its 23 campuses bracing for a severe cut in state funding.

Fresno State also is well behind the other CSU schools in the Mountain West Conference in revenue from student fees - San Diego State banked around $13 million from student fees in 2022-23 and San Jose State $8.8 million, while the Bulldogs’ athletics department received $4.2 million.

Fresno State as a result has been slipping within the Mountain West. It had total athletics revenues of $48.9 million in 2022-23, according to the most recent financial report the athletics department submits annually to the NCAA, ranking eighth of nine public schools in the conference with data publicly available.

The Bulldogs trailed San Diego State ($103.9 million), Colorado State ($64.3 million), Boise State ($60.7 million), UNLV ($56.6 million), Wyoming ($50.1 million) and Nevada ($49.5 million). Data from New Mexico and Utah State is not yet available, and Fresno State ranked ahead of San Jose State.

Fresno State ranked third in 2017-18, just six years ago.