Laird Veatch, MEd

Biography

Distinguished Alumnus
Vice President & Director of Intercollegiate Athletics
The University of Memphis

As an undergraduate, Laird Veatch had a distinguished football career at Kansas State University where he played linebacker. His excellence on the field matched his excellence in the classroom and he was twice named a College Football Association (CFA) All-American. Veatch also earned All-Big Eight Academic honors four straight years, and he was selected as the Hitachi/CFA Scholar-Athlete of 1994.

After completing his B.S. in Business Administration, Veatch moved to Austin and entered what was then called the Master’s Program in Sports Administration—now called Sport Management. Awarded a graduate assistantship by UT Athletics, Veatch worked in sports marketing, game day operations and media relations before moving to donor relations in his second year in the program.

With his master’s degree in hand, he moved in 1997 to The University of Missouri as the director of annual giving and within three years was promoted twice, finishing there as the assistant athletic director for development. For the next two decades, Veatch moved consistently upward, becoming senior associate athletics director for external operations at Iowa State in 2002, and then deputy athletics director and chief of staff at Kansas State, his alma mater. He then went to the University of Florida where, from 2017-2019, he was the executive associate athletics director for internal affairs.

In 2019, Veatch achieved the dream of many students in our sport management program by becoming our first alumnus to be named director of athletics at a major university. Two years later, he was promoted to vice president and director of intercollegiate athletics, a position he still holds.

Veatch’s tenure at Memphis has been transformative. He has made significant changes to coaching personnel and he has led major capital campaigns to improve and build new athletics facilities. Under his direction, the Memphis Tigers have connected their program to the greater Memphis community in new ways and he has also changed the culture of the program.

Of special significance is the role he has played in making The University of Memphis a leader in the new landscape surrounding athletes’ ability to capitalize while still in college on the use of their Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL). Memphis was one of the first ten schools in America to hire a “Director of Name, Image and Likeness” with the sole focus of helping student-athletes. In the fall of 2023, Veatch went further, by creating a partnership with Altius Sports which gives athletes at Memphis unparalleled access to professional marketing and legal advice. Memphis was only the second university in America to take this significant step to help student athletes.