The plans were simple enough: teach biology, coach high school football, stay close to home, and ride out the good life in Southern California.
That was the world Dr. Richard Duran grew up in. A tight-knit Montebello and East LA family where few had ever earned a college degree or even left the zip code. College wasn’t expected, and a career in higher education certainly wasn’t the script. Or for that matter, a doctoral degree.
But one conversation, and one stubborn belief from a college professor, changed the trajectory of everything.
As a freshman kinesiology major and a football player at Whittier College, Duran nearly walked away before he ever got started. He wasn’t prepared. His family had no roadmap to guide him. By his own admission, he didn’t have the confidence yet to feel like he belonged. And the idea of becoming a high school coach and biology teacher evaporated the moment he sat through his first biology class.
Then came Dr. Kathy Barlow.
The former junior college athletic director and basketball coach stopped him in his tracks with a question Duran had never considered.
“Why be the football coach when you can be the football coach’s boss?”
He didn’t know what an athletic director was. He didn’t know anyone in his family who had even graduated from college. But for the first time, someone saw more in him than he’d ever seen in himself. That belief, paired with the VHS tape of his childhood favorite film The Pistol: The Birth of a Legend, helped unlock the confidence he needed to keep going.
By the time he graduated, Duran had gone from nearly dropping out to finishing at the top of his program with distinction. He earned his master’s degree at the University of San Francisco, worked at the Big West Conference, and took on grinding, early-career roles at UC Riverside, Louisiana Monroe, and Cal State LA. Each stop layered a new experience. Each stop reinforced that the AD chair wasn’t just possible, it was the actual path.
For a kid whose family had never left Southern California, the idea of moving across the country to pursue this profession felt unthinkable. But Duran did it. He took the risk. He became the first in his family to finish college and then kept going until he earned his doctorate. And at the time, he became one of the youngest Division I athletic directors in the country.
“If that piece of paper changed my life,” he told HERO Sports, “then I have a responsibility to pay it forward for every student who comes through our doors. That’s my ‘why’ every single day.”
Building UIW Into The Word
When Duran arrived at UIW, the institution already had ambition. It wanted to become a name-brand Division I school and had recently opened a medical school. But the on-the-ground reality was different. As he described it, “Division I in name only.” The vision was there, but the planning had never caught up.
What followed was a complete cultural rebuild.
Duran set out to install structure, raise expectations, educate the campus on what Division I truly required, and put people in place who could elevate the entire department. The work was slow, sometimes uncomfortable, and filled with tough conversations. But UIW started to look, act, and perform like a complete Division I program.
“There were a lot of conversations even with our donors and fans about the challenges we faced,” said Duran. “It took time, but things started to fall into place, and you have those aha moments, and you build off of them.”
And once the alignment clicked, results followed at a stunning pace.
Under Duran’s leadership, UIW has transformed into one of the most successful and well-rounded athletic departments at the FCS level. The Cardinals won back-to-back Southland Conference Commissioner’s Cups in 2021-22 and 2022-23, the first in school history, and celebrated a national championship in Artistic Swimming. UIW captured 19 conference titles during his tenure, including a school-record six in the 2021-22 academic year, and recorded its highest finish in the Learfield Directors’ Cup standings in 2024-25.
Football became a consistent national contender, spending 60 consecutive weeks ranked in the top 25 and producing standout leaders such as No. 1 NFL Draft pick Cameron Ward, whose selection generated an estimated $324 million in exposure for the university. The program also launched the careers of Eric Morris, now the head coach at Oklahoma State, and G.J. Kinne, head coach at Texas State. Off the field, UIW built one of the strongest service cultures in the country with student-athletes completing more than 50,500 hours of community service since 2017, including a record-setting 6,600 hours last year.
As the wins accumulated, so did the impact.
UIW grew from a local unknown to a regional brand, to a recognized Texas name, and eventually to a program with national visibility. “The Word” carried farther — even internationally. More prospective students landed on the university’s website. More families discovered UIW’s academic strengths in optometry, nursing, and health sciences, as well as its campuses in Mexico.
Athletics became the front porch that opened the door for everything else on campus.
A Program That Fights Above Its Weight Class
For all the progress, UIW’s growth has also brought decision points. With rising expectations and an evolving Division I landscape, Duran has been candid about the biggest questions facing the institution:
What’s next at UIW? Who do we want to be? How do we get there?
UIW has long been the fighter that overachieves, punches above its weight, and does more with less. It’s a badge of honor, but it also creates a ceiling. If the university wants to stay at the top of the Southland or push even further, the next step requires institutional clarity and commitment.
Duran put it plainly.
“We can stay satisfied, or we can invest in what our coaches and student athletes need and see how far this thing can go. There are a lot of moving parts to all of this, and we absolutely need to be aligned with our campus administration in every decision.”
He’s quick to emphasize that UIW has a unique identity and a clear sense of who it serves. A faith-based mission. A football-playing institution. A place built on community, connection, and competitive pride. A place that “embraces the chip-on-your-shoulder mentality because it reflects the students it educates.”
The next chapter is about sharpening that identity and deciding how bold the next move should be.
Why It Matters
For Duran, the story always ties back to education.
He is a first-generation college graduate who entered Whittier unsure if he would make it through the first semester. Now he leads a Division I department that serves more than 530 student-athletes each year and brings meaningful visibility to an entire university.
His success has redefined what is possible for his family. His godchildren now talk about college as a given, not a dream.
“It changed the trajectory for all of us,” he said.
He wants UIW to offer that same doorway to every young person who walks onto campus … athlete or not.
The Person Behind The Title
Away from the office, the meetings, and the constant pull of every athletic season, Duran is a homebody at heart. He loves movies, quiet weekends, and relaxing with his significant other. He has visited half of MLB’s ballparks and plans to check off the rest. And his favorite film still ties back to the things that shaped him. Pistol Pete, an underdog story about a person who fought for something bigger.
Maybe that is why he fits so naturally at a place like UIW.
The kid from Montebello who didn’t think he could finish college, who moved across the country for a dream he didn’t fully understand yet, who became one of the youngest athletic directors in the nation, now leads a department built on belief and opportunity.
UIW is betting on what it can become.
And so is Dr. Richard Duran.
