John Cunningham

Now in his fifth year as the Director of Athletics at the University of Cincinnati, John Cunningham has proven to be the perfect fit for the Bearcats, packing win after win into his time on Clifton Heights since taking the helm in December 2019. 

Some of the many highlights of his tenure include guiding the Bearcats into the Big 12, launching a landmark $100 million Day One Ready fundraising campaign, securing a new apparel deal with Nike and Jordan Brand and serving as the administrative oversight for the first-ever Group of Five team to advance to the College Football Playoff.

In his first few months on campus, Cunningham led the Bearcats’ response to the COVID-19 pandemic and created the Next Level Success Fund to provide the necessary resources to achieve competitive success and crucial support for UC’s student-athletes. 

In 2021, Cunningham spearheaded Cincinnati’s charge to join the Big 12 and launched the $100 million Day One Ready Campaign initiative. The Day One Ready Campaign raised money in the areas of student-athlete wellness, signature facilities and operational resources to compete for championships in the Big 12, which Cincinnati joined on July 1, 2023.

The centerpiece of the Day One Ready Campaign is the $135 million Indoor Practice Facility and Performance Center, which broke ground in May 2023. The state-of-the-art complex feature a 120-yard football field, brand-new weight room, fueling station and sports medicine offices over more than 200,000 square feet. It is scheduled to be completed in the spring of 2025. 

Cunningham restructured his leadership team to provide a new focus on internal and external operations, tapped Wes Miller, one of the nation’s best young coaches, to lead the men’s basketball program, hired two-time conference coach of the year Scott Satterfield to guide the football team, and brought UC alum Katrina Merriweather back home to coach women’s basketball.

He also added head coaches Jordan Bischel (baseball), Erica Demers (women’s soccer) and Aimee Ponte (women’s golf) to guide Bearcats’ programs during the 2023-24 academic year, welcoming five new coaches during the first year of Big 12 competition. 

Unprecedented Success on the Field and on the Course
The Bearcats’ football program found unprecedented success in 2021, winning a school-record 13 games and a second consecutive American Athletic Conference Championship en route to becoming the first non-“Power Five” team to participate in the College Football Playoff.

UC football is an impressive 34-15 with two conference titles and 16 NFL draft selections since 2020.

Additionally, the Cincinnati men’s golf program has found its most success in program history in recent years, culminating with the Bearcats first-ever NCAA Regional Championship appearance in 2023 and Ty Gingerich’s individual Big 12 Championship in 2024. 

Cunningham has also embraced the changing landscape of college athletics, fully embracing Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) by creating IMPACT, a comprehensive NIL development program. The Bearcats have been bold and innovative in the NIL space in recent years, partnering with Kroger on the nation’s largest female-only activation as well as Jason and Travis Kelce’s podcast, New Heights, to host a live event in 2024 where a significant portion of ticket sales supported NIL. Additionally, Cincy Reigns, the official NIL partner of UC Athletics, collaborated with Rhinegeist to create Cincy Light - the country’s fastest-growing craft light lager. 

In 2024, Cincinnati’s IMPACT program was named the nation’s Best Institutional Program at the NIL Summit in Atlanta. 

UC Creates New Departments, Sets Academic Records
Cunningham has focused attention and resources on student-athlete-centric initiatives such as launching the department’s first ever Sports Psychology Department and creating the Performance Nutrition department, while prioritizing student-athlete mental health and wellness. He also hired Brad Pike as UC’s first ever Senior Associate AD for Health and Wellness and added Senior Associate AD/CFO John Daniel and Deputy AD/External Anthony Di Fino.

UC has reached exceptional heights in academics under Cunningham, as well.

In the spring of 2024, Bearcats student-athletes achieved an overall GPA of 3.4 with 30 collecting academic all-district honors. 

In 2023, Cincinnati ranked No. 1 in the Big 12 and fifth in the nation in Graduation Success Rate at 98%. 

In 2022, six student-athletes collected Academic All-America accolades.

Cunningham Serves as Deputy AD at Minnesota and Syracuse   
Before leading the Bearcats, Cunningham served as Minnesota’s Deputy Athletics Director for Administration from 2016-19, overseeing the day-to-day administrative operations of the department, working with all 25 Gopher programs and external units, as well as serving as sport administrator for football, men’s basketball and men’s golf.

He was part of the fundraising and implementation of the Gophers’ Athletes Village, a privately-funded project of $166-million which added more than 338,000 square feet of new academic, leadership, nutrition, practice and team support space for all sports.

Cunningham joined the Minnesota staff from Syracuse, where he also served as the Deputy Athletics Director for Administration from 2015-16. 

Prior to his tenure at Syracuse, Cunningham worked at Boise State University from 2011-2014 as the senior associate athletics director for external relations and executive director for NCAA Compliance.

Boise State and TCU Bolster His Resume  
At BSU, Cunningham was promoted to senior associate athletics director for external relations in 2014 after leading the NCAA Compliance program for three years. As the head of external relations, Cunningham led the operations of Boise State’s development, marketing, media relations and ticket offices. He was also the sport administrator for men’s basketball, men’s and women’s golf, and men’s tennis.

Prior to his appointment at BSU, Cunningham worked at Texas Christian University for five years in the compliance field. He was hired by the Horned Frogs in 2006 as the assistant director of compliance and followed up a year later with a promotion to director of compliance. In 2011, he was promoted again to assistant athletics director for compliance. In that position, he was responsible for a comprehensive rules education program and provided rules interpretations for athletics staff, coaches, student-athletes and university officials.

Love for Sports Traced Back to Youth in Lincoln
Cunningham started his career in collegiate athletics as the compliance coordinator at the University of Maryland. While in law school, he was a compliance intern at Maryland for two summers.

A 2001 TCU graduate, Cunningham received a law degree from the University of Nebraska’s College of Law in 2005. 

A native of Lincoln, Nebraska, he developed his love for college athletics by following his hometown Cornhuskers as a kid.

Cunningham and his wife, Caitlin, have two sons, Gus and Hank.