Murray State makes Kuyper hire official
MBB: Ernie Kuyper will be the General Manager for Head Coach Ryan Miller
Murray State announced the hiring of Ernie Kuyper as the men’s basketball program’s first-ever General Manager.
"We are thrilled to welcome Ernie Kuyper as the inaugural General Manager of Murray State Men's Basketball, a newly created role to navigate the evolving landscape of college athletics," Murray State Head Coach Ryan Miller said in a statement. "With his extensive experience in the business of grassroots basketball, particularly in the realms of revenue sharing and NIL, Ernie is uniquely equipped to guide our program in the modern NCAA model. His proven success in developing youth leagues and his vision for fostering young talent make him the ideal leader to elevate our program to new heights."
Kuyper has been a staple of AAU basketball in Memphis for years, while also being the president of Hoop City Basketball Club for the last two decades.
"I am thrilled to join the Murray State Racer basketball program as General Manager," Kuyper said in a statement. "In today's college basketball landscape, success demands a personalized approach, empowering each player to excel on the court while building their brand and preparing for future opportunities. Our mission is clear: relentlessly pursue elite talent to compete at the highest level and deliver championship-caliber results."
After Miller’s introductory news conference last month, Murray State Director of Athletics Nico Yantko explained the creation of the General Manager position.
“It’s not a new position, per se in body count, but it is an evolution of our roles that we currently had,” Yantko said. “To get that position in place, someone that's focusing on not only evaluation of your roster, roster management and personnel decisions…”
That’s where I interrupted Yantko for clarification. Did he say ‘evaluation’ or ‘valuation’?
“Both,” Yantko responded. “I think you have to explore both of those avenues throughout this market now. The game has changed. The (transfer) portal is real. There's no more hiding behind ‘What is it?’ It is what it is. We're in a marketplace now (where) that market is constantly evolving. (When) we tap into the revenue share era, we need to have people who can assign values and evaluate talent, but also understand the connectivity on how you get to understanding these individuals personally and professionally. I think there's a lot of pieces that this general manager role is going to hold firm on, but also work with us from an administrative point, also work with Ryan and the roster themselves, because the game has evolved so much. It's not recruiting like it was ten, 15 years ago. There's so many elements and variables that play into this, from it being agent relationships, right down to the AAU systems and all those components. When you look at what this role will be, it's going to be a lot of catch-all on the player-personnel side, and it's going to mimic that of a professional model. However, it’s still in collegiate athletics. We still recruit our players, right? We still recruit them. So that is one unique twist to the puzzle here that we're still all navigating, not only at Murray State, but nationally. I think we're playing offense here and assigning this role to a general manager.”
Since 2009, Kuyper has been active with Memphis' Youth Athletic Foundation as its president, and he also directed camps for the Memphis Grizzlies for three years.