The athletic department has yet another job vacancy to fill as Senior Associate Athletics Director Paul Vecchio accepted the athletic director position at Alfred University. The move was announced on Tuesday, April 10.
Vecchio, who has been with Buffalo since 1995, will join the Saxons in July and will head an athletic department that boasts 19 sports teams that compete in Division-3.
Vecchio is familiar with Alfred. He was the sports information director at the school from 1992-95 prior to joining the staff at Buffalo.
"It's kind of like full circle for me," Vecchio said. "I loved Alfred, and I loved every minute there, and I left there because it was an opportunity to come to a Division-1 school that was blossoming. I've always wanted the opportunity to be a director of athletics, and it's a place that I've had a fondness for, so it makes a lot of sense for me to come back."
Vecchio and his wife, Dawn, are both native to towns near Alfred. They view the move as a homecoming of sorts.
But for Vecchio the homecoming comes with mixed emotions.
"It's bittersweet," Vecchio said. "It's something that I've worked for my whole life. On the one side I'm absolutely ecstatic for the opportunity, but to leave a place that I feel like I've poured a great part of myself into is tough. I feel like I've experienced every emotion here: high, low, and in between."
The move is the second in as many months for a senior official within the athletics department. Warde Manuel, former athletic director, recently left Buffalo to take the same position at UConn. Manuel's replacement has yet to be announced.
"I give so much credit to Warde for the staff he put together and what he meant to me as a mentor," Vecchio said. "He gave me opportunities here that I've never had. I have this job because of him. But this place is in great hands. President [Satish K.] Tripathi is absolutely supportive of athletics and knows the role that it can play here, and I think that great things are ahead at UB."
Vecchio will still be performing his day-to-day duties for the duration of the school year before taking over for James Moretti, who has served as Alfred's AD for the past 14 years.
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