John Cunningham
John Cunningham was named the Director of Athletics at the University of Cincinnati in December 2019.
Most recently, 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.
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.
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.
Cunningham started his career in collegiate athletics as the compliance coordinator at the University of Maryland, where he was responsible for providing rules interpretations, tracking initial, and continuing and transfer eligibility of more than 700 student-athletes. 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. Cunningham and his wife, Caitlin, have two sons, Gus and Hank
