| Title: | Executive Director, UNB REDS |
| Phone: | (506) 458-7217 |
| Email: | jrichard@unb.ca |
John Richard has spent more than a quarter century in athletics at the University of New Brunswick, including more than a decade as the UNB's Athletic Director.
Richard played three seasons with UNB’s men’s volleyball team while earning a Kinesiology degree (1996).
He ended his playing career before graduation and, in 1995, joined UNB’s women’s volleyball team as an assistant coach, a position he held for three years until assuming the head coach’s role in 1998.
Richard guided the UNB women to Atlantic conference championships in 2008 and 2011 before ending a 14-season run as head coach in 2012. While coaching, Richard was also UNB’s Assistant Athletic Director (2005-2010) and Acting Athletic Director (2004-2005), taking over as Athletic Director in 2011.
In Richard’s decade-plua as Athletic Director, UNB hosted eight team national championship events, and REDS teams won nine team national championship medals (5 gold, 2 silver, 2 bronze).
Along with his Athletic Director’s duties at UNB, Richard has served in various capacities at the Atlantic University Sport and U SPORTS levels, including AUS President and AUS Vice-President. He also served as the AUS chair of scheduling. He held the position of AD Rep on the U SPORTS Management Advisory Council and the U SPORTS Board of Directors.
Away from UNB, Richard has coached numerous Team New Brunswick entries at national and regional events, served as the president, executive and technical director of Volleyball New Brunswick, and is still the scheduling lead with Volleyball Canada’s national indoor committee.
John is married to Jennifer Bent-Richard, the Director of Sport and Recreation, Government of New Brunswick. The couple have a daughter, Ali.