Erik Lora came to Eastern as an undergraduate student athlete, majored in sports management and played four and a half years for the football team. He is a graduate of the KSS, now KSR, program. Lora was hired in July as Assistant Athletic Director of Development. This is the fundraising arm of the athletic department.

Lora looked back at his Eastern experience fondly.  

“It’s one of the sole reasons why I’m back here; my experience at Eastern was absolutely fantastic. I created camaraderie with people. Being away from Miami, Fla., which is my hometown, it was something that I was looking for,” Lora said. “I was looking for a community, I was looking for people I could make friends with, and Eastern certainly provided a community that was open-armed and embraced me as a student and as an athlete. My experience here was great, it was second to none, and I would do it all over again.”

Lora credited his college experience as the push that brought him to this position and even spoke about his expectations and motivation. 

“This is kind of my first go round as an administrator here, It’s something that I’m very excited about and something that I’m very blessed to have the opportunity to do, so I’m certainly excited for that,” Lora said. “My job entails handling the panther club, which is our athletic donor ship member club where we put on events and have certain benefits for kind of the levels of donation. It’s my job to help cultivate and create relationships with donors to advance the university and our athletic department.”

Lora used previous connections to other alumni and even meeting new people in the search to recruit support and donor ship for Eastern.

“Eastern’s been around for a long time and we have plenty of influential leaders and influential people in many different industries, and it’s my job to get with them, create a relationship and see how we can advance this university for the betterment of them, their degree and the student athletics and the students that go to this university right now,” Lora said. 

Lora went on to say that he was aiming to make the college experience at Eastern better and advance the college and the community around it. He also said he aimed to be able to compete with peak division one athletics.

 “We have to continuously grow if we want to keep up and stay up with other universities and what they’re consistently doing,” Lora said.

Lora spoke more about the advantages that being a former student athlete would yield for him.

“Allows me to use my passion for the university as a tool,” Lora said. “I firmly believe in Eastern, I firmly believe that this is great university and community that we can build upon. I have a connection to those guys, and I have connection to the community.” 

He spoke about not only making an effort, but making that effort known to the students and community.

“It’s important that our student athletes know that we care about their advancement, their progression and their experience here,” Lora said.

Eric Hendrix can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].