UNLV President Neal Smatresk announced today the search for an athletic director is closed. Smatresk will recommend UNLV Interim Athletic Director Tina Kunzer-Murphy's contract be extended through December 31, 2014 at the October 18 special meeting of the Board of Regents.

"We have closed our search for an athletic director, after interviewing several highly qualified candidates. The pool was strong, and we heard several different visions for leading UNLV Athletics into the future," said Neal Smatresk, UNLV President. "We believe that all the candidates interviewed could have made positive contributions to our program. I want to thank the candidates for presenting their vision, and the search committee for their hard work bringing this list forward.

During this time we have also communicated with a number of community stakeholders, and in conversations with internal and external constituencies, we found that there is a very high level of support for our current interim athletic director, Tina Kunzer-Murphy.

In the past three months, serving as interim athletic director, she improved the fiscal stability and accountability of UNLV Athletics. She has worked effectively with our coaches who unanimously support her. She has improved relations with the Thomas & Mack staff, and is strong advocate for UNLV in the community. Finally, she is conducting an infrastructure assessment and building a vision for UNLV Athletics. In my opinion none of the candidates we interviewed had a greater demonstrated ability to run UNLV Athletics at this time than Kunzer-Murphy."