Chaves Introduced as New UND Athletic Director

Former Eastern Washington AD, Chaves, joins UND in same position.

GRAND FORKS, N.D. — After former athletic director Brian Faison retired in the fall of 2017, it has been a task for the UND administration to find his successor. Tuesday they did announcing former Eastern Washington Athletic Director Bill Chaves to the same position.

“With Bill Chaves you have somebody who has a decade of experience in Division I,” UND President Mark Kennedy said. “He knows us because we’ve been in the Big Sky [Conference] with him. He’s been a national Athletic Director of the year a couple times. He’s had experience with three hockey schools. He really wants all of the sports to succeed. I think we got a great athletic director.”

Hockey was a big reason why Chaves chose to join the UND administration.

“There is only about 60 or 65 schools in the country out of 351 that play men’s ice hockey,” New Athletic Director Bill Chaves said. “This is one of them. So that definitely intrigued me as well.”

Chaves is the 16th athletic director in the history of the University of North Dakota. President Kennedy says Chaves is already embracing the green and black.

“He fully embraces our one UND strategic plan,” Kennedy said.”

“It is important that people have an opportunity, whether it is someone who has been here for lets just say 40 or 50 years or four days, I think they all have a perspective,” Chaves said. “I think as long as we’re all going in the same direction, wanting the same thing, I think we have an opportunity [to succeed].”

On top of success in the classroom, Chaves hopes to continue the athletic success that the Fighting Hawks have already made a cornerstone of its university.

“When you’re keeping score it is nice to win more than you lose,” Chaves stated. “I’ll be honest with you, I think I’m administratively competitive and I’m excited about the opportunity.”