Syracuse athletics: the case for Nick Carparelli to be the next AD

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It remains a news-heavy time for Syracuse Orange Athletics, especially with an announcement for the next athletic director possibly happening as soon as this week. Who will ultimately be the hire tasked with taking over John Wildhack and guiding SUA forward?

It’s a question with no official answer, but plenty of candidates who are rumored to be in the running. One of the names gaining plenty of steam recently is Nick Carparelli.

Carparelli — who graduated with a master’s degree from Syracuse University in 1994 and served as a graduate assistant for the football team for two years — not only has ties to the school, but also has decades of experience in college football and athletics.

Carparelli was once football administrator with Notre Dame and then went to the NFL to be the Director of Operations for the New England Patriots. After that, he notably was the senior associate commissioner for the Big East Conference. In this role, he primarily was in charge of various football operations for Syracuse’s former conference. Later on, Carparelli later worked for Under Armour as its senior director of college sports. He was tasked with managing the brand’s college sports marketing.

Now, Carparelli is the executive director of Coca-Cola Bowl Season, especially focusing on the college football bowl system.

In short, this isn’t just experience in the sport, but diverse experience from being with multiple teams to working behind the scenes plus being on the business side.

Especially in his roles with Under Armour and now the bowl system, this also means having established relationships with different entities, needing to be an effective communicator and bringing to the table the necessary skills for such a task.

First off, the value could be huge for a school like Syracuse, who notably started off behind the eight ball when it came to its NIL strategy. As discussed previously, the focus for the next SUA AD has to be 1) making money and 2) allocating it appropriately across various teams/programs.

Carparelli fits the “business archetype” mold with experience doing said allocation and discussion with multiple players. Based on some recent reporting, he definitely appears to be future-focused with where the sport and college athletics in general is heading.

There’s also two added bonuses. One of them is having the football background. Success on the football field remains the biggest of keys to driving everything else, especially with the dollars coming in. A football-focused approach could lead to benefits for other teams.

The other, notably, is the ties to SU.

Because, while he has them, Carparelli wasn’t “in the room” when some of these recent Syracuse decisions happened. In other words, Syracuse isn’t where it is now because of Carparelli, but he still brings with him with of that tradition and potential pride for the school, which always carries some value.

Looking at the other notable, rumored candidates — namely Heather Lyke and Russ Brandon — Carparelli is a total slam dunk (or touchdown, with his background in mind).

If there are any “concerns”, there’s two which come to mind.

The biggest of them is if he’s hired, Carparelli is tasked with making his biggest decision almost immediately: deciding who’s next to lead Syracuse men’s basketball, should this year be the final one for coach Adrian Autry. Would leadership primarily centered on football be adequate enough to make the call and the potential hire, easily the most important for the incoming AD?

Broadly-speaking, this also trickles down to the rest of Orange sports. If football is truly going to be king, what does that mean for other programs which don’t have the money football or even men’s basketball do? It’s a scenario many institutions are navigating and Syracuse is certainly one of them, especially with resources having to go to women’s basketball, both lacrosse teams and others.

Those concerns are legit, and maybe Carparelli can handle them, but they do need to be noted.

That said, of the current pool, there are clear things to point to with why on paper, he could very well be the next AD at SU.

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