CSUB athletic director Konya a finalist for CSUN job
BY JEFF EVANS Californian staff writer jevans@bakersfield.com
Jeff Konya, who has been Cal State Bakersfield's athletic director for two years, confirmed Sunday night through a CSUB athletic department spokesman that he is a finalist for the vacant athletic director's job at Cal State Northridge.
Konya, when contacted Sunday night through Corey Costelloe, CSUB's director of new media and broadcasting, said he couldn't comment.
Konya will reportedly visit the Northridge campus this week for an interview.
Konya was hired by CSUB in late November, 2010, to replace Rudy Carvajal, the Roadrunner athletic director for 38 years who had announced his retirement. Konya officially began his CSUB duties Jan. 8, 2011.
Under his watch, CSUB has placed many of its then-independent sports programs into various conferences as affiliate members.
As that was happening, Konya worked to find CSUB an all-sports conference home.
That was accomplished in October when the university accepted an invitation to join the Western Athletic Conference, effective July 1, 2013.
Konya has also overseen several improvements to CSUB's athletic facilities, most notably the blue floor in the Icardo Center used by both basketball teams and volleyball.
CSUB has also earned national recognition for marketing and fundraising strategies since Konya's arrival.
Konya came to CSUB from Northeastern State University, Okla., where he had been the athletic director since 2008. Prior to that, Konya had various jobs in athletics at several Division I universities including SMU, Memphis, Texas-San Antonio and Bucknell.
A former football player at Princeton, Konya earned a degree in politics at Princeton and later earned a law degree with academic distinction at the University of Iowa.
If Konya gets the job at Northridge, he will replace Rick Mazzuto, who was fired in November after six years as the Matadors' athletic director.
Northridge brought in Dianne F. Harrison as its university president in June.
"We have a new president, and like any president, she has the opportunity to bring in her own team," Mazzuto said in a Nov. 14 story in the Los Angeles Daily News. "My assumption is that my departure is part of that process."
The Daily News added in that story that Northridge's men's basketball team had a 14-18 season the previous year and was banned from postseason play because the team did not meet the NCAA-mandated Academic Progress Rate requirements.
CSUB and Northridge were longtime rivals on the national scene in Division II and in the California Collegiate Athletic Association until the Matadors moved to Division I for the 1990-91 academic year. CSUB became a full Division I member in the fall of 2010 after completing a four-year transition from Division II.
Most CommentedMost Popular
The family of David Silva announced Friday it has filed its long-expected federal civil rights claims against the Kern County Sheriff’s Office, six sheriff’s deputies and a sergeant, two California Highway Patrol officers, the county and the state alleging excessive police force killed him.
He’s Dr. Merle Haggard now. The bad-boy hero of the rebel strain of music that put Bakersfield on America’s cultural map half a century ago did something Friday he hadn’t done since he was 9: He sat still in school.
A 25-year-old man who died in Kern County sheriff’s custody Monday night had two plastic baggies with illegal drugs stuffed in his throat, the department reported.
SACRAMENTO -- The California High-Speed Rail Authority won approval Thursday from a federal railroad oversight board to start construction this summer on the first leg of what would be the nation's first bullet train.
A Bakersfield attorney’s rocky marriage, marked by a divorce suit and a history of loud, public arguments, reportedly erupted into violence early Wednesday morning when police say he turned a gun on his wife and fired.
A woman found dead in a southeast Bakersfield garage Tuesday was identified Friday as 18-year-old Mia Ramirez of Bakersfield.
After a search that lasted much of Tuesday afternoon, the Kern County Sheriff’s Office arrested a man on suspicion of homicide in connection with the discovery of a woman’s body in a southeast Bakersfield garage.
A 25-year-old man who died in Kern County sheriff’s custody Monday night had two plastic baggies with illegal drugs stuffed in his throat, the department reported.