Kevin Bostian took control of the Northwestern State athletic department in February 2022, three weeks after being named NSU’s new Director of Athletics.
In his first full year at the helm of the department, Northwestern State athletics enjoyed its first top-five finish in the Southland Conference Commissioner’s Cup since 2014-15, tying for fourth in the league.
The highlight of the competitive year was the first Southland Conference Indoor Track and Field championship in Lady Demon history, part of a track and field campaign that saw both men’s and women’s track and field collect top-two finishes in both the indoor and outdoor meets.
Bostian also upheld NSU’s tradition of community impact as the department captured its second Southland Strong Community Service Award, joining the inaugural award it landed in 2014-15.
As Northwestern State enters its fourth full year of the Bostian era of leadership, it does so with a number of athletics facility improvements on the horizon as well as a women’s track and field team that has won five of six possible Southland Conference championships during his NSU tenure.
During his Northwestern tenure, Bostian has overseen tremendous change in the school's athletic facilities. In less than four years, Bostian has touched nearly every edifice in the athletic footprint.
Included in the changes is a nearly $2 million gift from the Thornton family of Natchitoches that provided new turf and lights for the NSU softball complex and state-of-the-art PIVOT no-infill turf and a new outfield wall at Brown-Stroud Field.
Additionally, both Brown-Stroud Field and Prather Coliseum — home of both Northwestern basketball teams and the volleyball squad — have new videoboards.
Next up on Bostian's agenda is a $1.7 million Mondo track at the Walter P. Ledet Track Complex that should be completed in late October or early November 2025.
Those upgrades are joined by the David & Sherry Morgan Health Performance Center, which is scheduled to be opened in January 2026, giving Northwestern an expanded strength and conditioning area that also will precipitate change in the Donald G. Kelly Athletic Complex's training and equipment rooms.
Regarded as a team builder with an innate ability to raise funds, Bostian came to Natchitoches after nearly two years at UNC Greensboro, serving as the Spartans’ executive associate athletic director for development.
While at UNCG, the 43-year-old Bostian had the athletic department on pace for its highest fundraising year in school history. In his final full year at UNCG, the athletic department raised $1.8 million in funds, surpassing its goal by 50 percent.
Throughout his nearly two-decade long career in college athletic administration, Bostian has consistently surpassed his goals and had UNCG on pace for its highest fundraising year in school history in the 2022 fiscal year. In his first year with the Spartans, UNCG athletics raised $1.8 million in funds for the department, surpassing their goal by 50 percent.
He also oversaw the UNCG athletics ticketing, marketing and promotions and athletics communications offices and was the sports administrator for the UNCG men’s basketball team, which won the Southern Conference regular-season and tournament championships and reached the NCAA Tournament.
In addition to his role in the external operations department, Bostian served as the interim athletic director at UNCG from September 2021 through January 2022.
Before coming to UNCG, Bostian was a major gifts officer at his alma mater, North Carolina State. As the officer in charge of gifts of more than $50,000, Bostian secured nearly $2.5 million in gifts in his 25 months with The Wolfpack Club.
Prior to his arrival at NC State, Bostian spent almost four years as Georgia Southern’s senior associate athletic director and executive director of the athletic foundation where he increased the athletic department’s revenue three straight years and helped cultivate a record number of donors four straight years. While at Georgia Southern, Bostian secured the second-largest cash gift in the department’s history and helped GSU push its athletic revenue to $3.909 million during the 2017 fiscal year.
A veteran of mid-major college athletics, Bostian spent more than three years at Tennessee Tech as its associate athletic director for development, serving as the department’s chief fundraiser.
Bostian secured the largest gift in Tennessee Tech athletics history, maintained a portfolio of more than 200 donors and increased total donor revenue by 80 percent, total number of donors by more than 77 percent and total number of major gifts by 58 percent.
Bostian spent nearly seven years at East Tennessee State in Johnson City, Tennessee, starting as a marketing, promotions, merchandise and licensing coordinator before moving into the director of corporate sales, marketing and regional athletic advancement position. He then spent three years as ETSU’s assistant athletic director of corporate development and regional athletic advancement.
In his time as the assistant athletic director, Bostian increased corporate sponsorship cash revenue and total revenue all three years and overall boosted cash revenue by 69 percent and total revenue by 47.6 percent. He developed, implemented and solicited donors on a capital campaign for a new weight room and a phase of the baseball stadium project at ETSU.
Bostian began his athletic administration career as a marketing specialist at South Alabama and spent a year as the sports marketing coordinator at the Gwinnett County Sports Commission in metro Atlanta.
A 2000 magna cum laude graduate of North Carolina State in business management, Bostian earned his master’s of business administration and master’s of sports administration from Ohio University in 2002.
He and his wife, Megan, have three children, Ayla, Zoe and Piper.
