Staff Directory
- Title:
- Deputy Director of Athletics/COO
- Email:
- Phone:
- (812) 856-0206
Stephen Harper serves as the Deputy Director of Athletics and Chief Operating Officer at IU Athletics and has been with the Department since 2017. Harper oversees the areas of facilities and capital projects, human resources, licensing, apparel and equipment operations, event management, risk management, legal affairs and contracts. Harper also serves as the sport administrator for men’s basketball, men’s soccer, and women’s soccer.
In Harper's time with the Department, he has overseen the successful completion of over $100 million in capital projects that have transformed and modernized the IU Athletics campus. Major projects include the completion of the South End Zone of Memorial Stadium, which is home to the Excellence Academy, Wilkinson Hall, IU’s new home for volleyball and wrestling, the Tardy Center, the new home for IU’s men’s and women’s soccer programs, the Pfau Golf Course, and the Roberts Family Team Center for men’s basketball.
Harper oversees the Department’s relationship with adidas and with IU Sports Properties, a division of Learfield IMG College. Recently, he worked to negotiate a new 10-year extension of the Department’s agreement with Learfield IMG College that saw the Department’s revenue increase by more than $2 million in its average annual value.
Prior to working in the Department, Harper served IU for 6 years as an attorney in the IU Office of the Vice President and General Counsel. He also served as interim General Counsel of the IU Foundation for an 8-month period in 2016.
Harper graduated cum laude from the IU Maurer School of Law and graduated summa cum laude from IU as an undergraduate majoring in English and secondary education. Prior to attending law school, Harper worked as a high school English teacher and coach at Bloomington North High School and served on the summer faculty at Choate Rosemary Hall in Wallingford, Connecticut.
