When Nick Yanco came to the University of Rhode Island as the new associate athletic director for development in June, he immediately got to work familiarizing himself with the URI athletics community.
“It’s a lot of sitting down and getting to know people’s stories,” Yanco said. “I think it’s one of the really fun parts about being in development is you get to know people really well. You build these great relationships.”
Much of his associate AD role centers around the financial side of athletics, raising funds to help the programs build on prior success.
“Running a college athletics department is continuing to be incredibly expensive,” Yanco said. “No matter what university you’re talking about. Where do you need the support? Is it travel? Nutrition? Coaching? What can we do to put you in a position to be competitive?”
Building relationships hopefully leads to an increase in donations, and in turn more financial support for athletics. Ideally, that leads to more successful programs. It was Yanco’s displayed ability to build relationships that made him an attractive candidate to URI.
“He’s really great at bringing the team together,” URI Foundation Associate Vice President of Unit Development Jeffrey Simon said. “He brought a lot of the qualities and skills that we are looking for to this role. He was a great candidate and a great fit.”
Yanco comes to Kingston following a tenure at Boston College, going from a pandemic-time volunteer intern for marketing and ticket sales to associate director of athletics leadership giving in just under four and a half years. He helped raise nearly $7 million during his time at BC.
The URI athletics mission and vision statements were some of the main things that encouraged Yanco, who played baseball at Brandeis University, to make the move to Rhody. Specifically, the listed vision statement for athletics, which reads: “The University of Rhode Island Department of Athletics will be a model athletics program, nationally recognized for creating champions in the classroom, in competition and in life.”
“As a former student-athlete myself, all those little things that I didn’t realize I was learning have helped me so much in my adult life,” Yanco said. “Time management, discipline, work ethic, communication, how to work with a team, how to work with a boss.”
Now with URI, his responsibilities closely align with URI Director of Athletics Pat Lyons, who is also relatively new to Kingston. Lyons – brought on in March – spoke about his excitement surrounding Yanco’s hiring when it was announced toward the end of May.
It’s early in both Yanco’s overall professional career and his URI tenure, but he’s being entrusted with a key role in his department. As college athletics continue to revolve around name, image and likeness, Yanco is one of the people doing his best to make sure the Rams can keep pace.
“He’s going to lead those key relationships with our primary donors,” Simon said.
As money plays more of a role across college athletics, resembling businesses rather than educational institutions, student-athletes can be seen as professional athletes rather than students looking for degrees. Yanco is making sure the student part of student-athlete is emphasized.
“At the end of the day, your goal is to support the students and the student-athletes of the university,” Yanco said.
