PROVO, Utah — BYU Director of Athletics Tom Holmoe today announced the hiring of Gary Veron as associate athletic director for student-athlete experience.
In this new role, Veron will oversee many aspects of traditional student-athlete development, while overseeing BYU’s name, image and likeness (NIL) efforts.
Veron will specifically run BYU’s Built4Life program, which launched today during BYU Football Media Day. Built4Life is a wholistic career development program for BYU student-athletes that will prepare them for life beyond BYU Athletics and help them capitalize on NIL opportunities to monetize their personal brands.
“Gary has proven himself as a highly-capable and valuable asset to BYU Athletics,” Holmoe said. “We are thrilled to have him in this new position and overseeing our Built4Life program. His robust experience in compliance is especially important as we enter a world of name, image and likeness legislation.”
Veron comes into this new role after working as director of compliance in BYU Athletics for the past four years. He oversaw all aspects of compliance for football and men's and women's cross country and track and field. He worked on compliance with NCAA rules and regulations for all student-athletes, recruits, coaches, employees and boosters at BYU.
Before his time at BYU, Veron worked as the chief compliance officer at Charles R. Drew University in Los Angeles, Calif. He also previously worked as the assistant athletic director for compliance and operations at Brigham Young University-Hawaii.
Veron received a bachelor’s degree from BYU in philosophy, an MPA from Wyoming and a JD from Wyoming.
“When the COVID-19 pandemic started, and for many months thereafter, no one in the college athletics world knew when ‘normal’ was going to return,” Veron said. “Fear and anxiety were ubiquitous on college and university campuses. But, rather than regressing and letting fear drive our athletics’ ship, Tom Holmoe challenged the athletic department to take advantage of this pivotal moment and use it as an opportunity to improve and grow. Billy Nixon and I took Tom’s admonition to heart and worked extensively on creating what we believe will serve as the gold standard in student-athlete experience programs. This program revolutionizes student-athlete experience by placing individualized focus at its core. We want all of our student-athletes to receive the critical life skills and professional development necessary to maximize their individualized brand and human potential.”
In Veron’s role, he will oversee a BYU Athletics NIL Committee which has already been functioning with BYU Athletics staff from communications, marketing, compliance, corporate sponsorship and individual team operations.
“Built4Life, while encompassing ways to help student-athletes realize their NIL potential, is so much more than a NIL blueprint,” Veron said. “In many ways, Built4Life was created by student-athletes for student-athletes. It is a program that we will continually improve as we solicit regular feedback and input from our student-athletes. Our four core values of Learn, Brand, Work, and Love align perfectly with the mission of this great university and the foundational principles of its sponsoring church. I am eternally grateful to be part of such a dynamic and forward-thinking athletic program. Great things are on the horizon.”
Find more information about Built4Life at BYUBuilt4Life.org.