SAN JOSE - Gonzaga's win over Xavier in the NCAA West Regional final Saturday represented the end of a successful event hosted in San Jose by the Pac-12 Conference.
But the work of Gloria Nevarez, the Pac-12 Senior Associate Commissioner, basketball liaison and overseer of all sports championships excluding football, never ends.
Crowds of players, coaches, reporters, coordinators, managers and assistants hurry in the bustling hallways and rooms before the start of a big championship game.
It is a hectic image, perhaps even more so to an outside viewer. There are hundreds of people lacing up their shoes, trying to make phone calls, scribbling words or lines and circles on paper, or any number of other tasks; and they are all directed by Nevarez.
“I travel to men's basketball games, [I help with] any issues with officiating, and I’m the main liaison with the coaches when they have issues or concerns,” Nevarez said. “We create the league schedule and the television schedule, and we try to help with with conference scheduling as well.”
Of course, Nevarez wasn’t always at the top of her industry. A graduate of Santa Clara High School - just a few miles away from the SAP Center which hosted the NCAA regional - Nevarez played basketball at the University of Massachusetts before going on to law school at the University of California, Berkeley.
But the moment she began work for a law firm to pay off her law school debt, Nevarez realized she was “not cut out for this” and started looking for a way to get back to college athletics.
“It was a leap of faith,” Nevarez said. “There wasn’t a lot of money relative to what my colleagues were making with their law degrees in the first five years of working in athletics, but it balanced out in the end, and there is a better payoff at the higher levels. But those entry levels are really tough. It was hard work — and a lot of Top Ramen.”
Before joining the Pac-12, Nevarez took an athletics job at the University of Oklahoma. She said that having a law degree helped her “jump in [the industry] and move around a little bit faster” because of the training that secondary degree provided.
Now, along with overseeing championship games, Nevarez deals with a vast variety of other responsibilities as Senior Commissioner.
In a single day, she goes from viewing footage of conflicts between players and teams, writing legal briefs and suggestion courses of action on numerous decisions to organizing hotel reservations, going through tournament credentialing and staffing big tournaments all over the West Coast. Her duties for the men's basketball season culminated this weekend with the Pac-12 hosting the West Regional final, which featured Gonzaga, Arizona, Xavier and South Carolina.
As for anyone looking to get into the college-level sports industry, Nevarez emphasizes not only networking, especially early on in the career, but also the ability to maintain those relationships “with all kinds of people” and combine those skills with a strict work ethic to get the job done.
“[You have to be able to] develop good relationships, not be afraid to challenge, not be a afraid to go toe-to-toe in a professional manner, and be able to operate in this world without burning bridges or holding grudges,” Nevarez said. “You have to love it for what it is, because once you get the job, you’re going to pull back the curtain, and it’s not always as exciting. You have to be willing to know the best part of it, and still enjoy being a part of the machine.”
As the game inches closer to starting, the basketball players and their teams’ staffs get into their lockers, and a brief moment of stillness pervades behind the scenes.
In her office, Nevarez takes a deep breath, absorbing the quiet for just a second. Then, the stadium erupts into noise again. But Nevarez is now in her element. She exits the room with confidence, ready for whatever her next task will throw at her.
“You know, even on my worst day, I still was getting paid to go watch basketball,” Nevarez said. “I mean, it still was a really good gig.”
