Brad Hecker
Assistant Commissioner · Womens Basketball
Mebane, NC
In My Own Words
Brad Hecker has most recently been the Assistant Commissioner of Women’s Basketball for The Atlantic Coast Conference. As the Assistant Commissioner, he was charged with coordinating women’s basketball operations with the ACC’s member institutions and managing the conference championship tournament. In addition, he managed the software development project for the league’s customized officiating services platform for 21 sports. “Official Hub” was the online home for officiating assignments, communications, game evaluations, payments and tax processing for the ACC as well as nine partner conferences. Brad also successfully worked with the NCAA to establish triathlon as an NCAA Emerging Sport for Women, which has grown to achieve full NCAA Championship Sport status.
Brad began his sports management career in 1995 as Program Director for The Greater New Orleans Regional Senior Olympic Games. For two years, he organized public relations and media campaigns for the games, established the organizational board structure that still is in place today. Brad worked with the board to coordinate 19 unique senior specific sporting events at 15 venues around the metropolitan New Orleans area. He has served as a Strength and Conditioning Coach for Newman High School in New Orleans, Athletic Director for the New Orleans Jewish Community Center, and as a member of the event production crew for Premier Event Management (PEM). With PEM, Brad assisted with the coordination of multi-sport events such as the 2004 and 2008 US Olympic Triathlon Team Qualifying races, World Duathlon Championships, International Triathlon Union World Cup events in Honolulu Hawaii, and the Nautica New York City Triathlon.
Brad began his NCAA career in 2002 at Campbell University as an Operations Intern with event management responsibilities. Within two years, he was promoted to Assistant Athletic Director for Marketing & Promotions. In this role, he coordinated the corporate sponsorship and promotions campaigns for the department and provided sport oversight support for the cross-country and track & field programs.
Brad’s professional objective is to coordinate high quality experiences for those who participate in, and support, competitive sports and recreational activities.
Work Experience
Assistant Commissioner
Womens Basketball2005 – 2023
Managed regular season operations and policy development, implementation, and compliance for the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) Women's Basketball across 15 member institutions to ensure elite level, consistent, fair, and accountable women's basketball operations throughout the league. Provided leadership, conducted extensive communications, and coordinated meetings with a diverse set of constituents. These constituents ranged from institutional administrators to head coaches to facility managers to technology directors to ticket managers and athletic trainers.
Managed the ACC Women's Basketball Tournament. Provided leadership to the ACC Women's Basketball Tournament Local Organizing Committee, the Greensboro Coliseum, ESPN/ACC Network, several outside entities, and the ACC's 15 institutions with all aspects of the championship.
Accomplishments: ● Responsible for a two-million-dollar ACC Women's Basketball Tournament budget and managed over 250 volunteers and staff to execute the six-day, 14-game event for 225 student-athletes and over 60,000 fans in attendance annually.
● Motivated ACC Head Coaches and Institutional Program Administrators to take on national leadership positions of influence. Worked with national collegiate women's basketball stakeholders to ensure ACC representation on critical groups. At the end of 2023, the ACC was well represented on the most influential NCAA and national governing bodies for women's basketball.
● Analyzed NCAA Tournament Selection Metrics (RPI/NET) to provide ACC programs with strategic nonconference scheduling consultation to optimize the league's chances for NCAA Tournament bids. As a result, the ACC led the nation in number of teams selected to the NCAA Women's Tournament (8) 2022 - 2024.
● Served as primary conference contact for all ACC Men's and Women's mandated gameday technologies to include courtside replay for officiating (DVSport), wireless time keeping system (Precision Time), wireless & wired game video delivery to team benches (agnostic system integration), web based postgame scout video distribution (Synergy). Ensured The ACC and the member institutions were utilizing the most advanced technologies available and permitted by NCAA rules to ensure exemplary game day execution and the most efficient / accurate operational support available at the collegiate level. In addition, worked with the NCAA on experimental rules to pioneer new technologies, most notably courtside replay for officiating and live video delivery to team benches.
● Coordinated a league wide strategic plan to inform and support individual programs and collectively better position ACC Women's Basketball as the premier collegiate women's basketball conference. Evaluation areas included: NCAA tournament success; recruiting; program budgeting; staffing; academic progress and graduation rates; travel policies; marketing and promotions; attendance; and television exposure. The strategic plan acted as a benchmark for the ACC women's basketball programs to ensure they were operating, and supported, at elite national levels. In addition, a five-year goals program was established for specific conference-related metrics which were reviewed annually for outcomes and accountability by the collective group at the conference meetings each spring.
● Successfully collaborated with ACC institutions and media rights holders (ESPN/Raycom Sports) to enable comprehensive television broadcast coverage for ACC Women's Basketball. This effort led to the evolution from a nine game women's basketball television package on Raycom Sports Network to full access to all ACC home conference and non-conference games on ESPN Nets / Bally Sports Nets /CW (Approximately 275 games per season). The increase in exposure moved access to ACC women's basketball from a mid-Atlantic regional viewership base to a national viewership access and international access via ESPN Net streaming options.
Project Manager
Official Hub2014 – 2023
Coordinated custom software development, designed, and optimized user experience for multiple user types and managed operations for the ACC's comprehensive officiating services platform.
● Collaborated with and supported multiple users of the leagues' officiating services platform to execute game officiating assignments, logistical communications, payment processing, game evaluations, and tax processing. This broad endeavor included: o The ACC and twelve alliance conferences, including the AAC, A10, America East, Big East, Big South, CAA, IVY, MAAC, Northeast 10, Northeast Conference, Patriot League, and Peach Belt o Five individual universities (Army, Liberty, Marist, UConn, UMass) o 21 sports o 4,000 Users
Creator / Project Manager
Triathlon: An NCAA Emerging Sport for Women2007 – 2009
Conceived of, created, and successfully presented the proposal to establish triathlon as an NCAA Emerging Sport for Women to the NCAA's Committee on Women's Athletics. As a result, over 40 NCAA institutions have added women's triathlon as a varsity program, resulting in full NCAA Championship Sport status.
Assistant Athletic Director Marketing AND Promotions
Campbell University2002 – 2005
Hired as a Game Operations Intern. After one academic year, promoted to Assistant Athletic Director. Coordinated public relations efforts. Managed promotions, branding, and sponsorship campaigns. Created the first merchandise and apparel program specific to the athletic department to include website and mobile gift shops at athletic facilities. Provided administrative oversight for track & field and cross-country programs by assisting the respective coaches with budgeting, compliance, recruiting and logistical responsibilities.
