‘NMSU needed a change.’ Ferme speaks after firing Mario Moccia

New Mexico State University’s athletics department is turning the page after a decade of Mario Moccia at the helm. 

That was the main message that new NMSU president Valerio Ferme and acting athletics director Amber Burdge hoped to impart during a news conference a day after announcing Moccia's firing. Ferme officially started at NMSU as interim president in November, and assumed the presidency outright on Jan. 1. Ferme confirmed Friday that Moccia had been fired and did not resign.

“My assessment was that NMSU needed a change,” Ferme said in a prepared statement to start the news conference. “Because it has been two and a half years that we have been embroiled in controversy with athletics. … We need to do better.”

New Mexico State University acting athletic director Amber Burdge is seen at a news conference on the Las Cruces campus on Jan. 3, 2025.

New Mexico State University president Valerio Ferme is seen at a press conference at Fulton Athletics Center on the Las Cruces campus, Jan. 3, 2025.

New Mexico State acting athletic director Amber Burdge appears with university president Valerio Ferme at a press conference on campus, Jan. 3, 2025. The two spoke with reporters one day after Ferme fired athletic director Mario Moccia.

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Ferme also confirmed that Burdge, who has been the deputy athletics director for strategic initiatives and leadership and deputy Title IX coordinator since August and previously served as senior associate athletics director since December 2022, will hold the position for at least six months. No national search will occur in that time, and Burdge has Ferme’s “full confidence,” he said. 

For her part, Burdge thanked Moccia for bringing her on and thanked the NMSU administration for trusting her. 

“This is not a time for a break, and we, as an athletic department, will continue moving forward. We owe that to our student-athletes, our coaches, and our staff. We've made tremendous strides toward building a culture within the athletic department and on this campus that you can be proud of, and I am confident that we will continue to build on that culture moving forward,” Burdge said. 

Ferme also reiterated that the New Mexico Department of Justice’s report was a key factor in deciding to move on from Moccia. At the prompting of several questions from news media, Ferme said that he did not receive pressure from the governor or her office to fire Moccia. 

“I spent a couple of weeks looking at (the NMDOJ Report), and obviously, during that time, I also looked at other documents, but that was a decision that I made based on my reading of these materials. So, I've had no contact with government during that period,” Ferme said. 

The New Mexico Department of Justice released a scathing report on Dec. 19 that found systemic failures and oversights contributed to three basketball players sexually assaulting teammates as part of ritual hazing during the 2022-23 season. 

In 2022, another player shot and killed a University of New Mexico student days before a game between the in-state rivals. 

The report found that the assaults occurred in an environment characterized by a toxic culture that permeated the basketball program, opportunities to observe and intervene were missed by those close to the team and institutional safeguards were insufficient to prevent or address misconduct.

Ultimately, then-Chancellor Dan Arvizu suspended the men’s basketball program for a year following the revelations. Shortly after, criminal charges and civil lawsuits followed.

But Arvizu also moved to give Moccia a five-year contract extension despite the swirling controversies at the time. 

Ferme was somewhat noncommittal about what would happen with the remaining money owed to Moccia. He declined to discuss what he called “personnel matters” about Moccia but pointed reporters to the contract. 

“We'll see what the next couple of weeks bring for anything that develops on these things, but we are not providing a buyout at this point,” Ferme said. 

Public records show Moccia signed a five-year extension in 2023 with a salary of $371,800 in 2024. He was set to receive yearly increases that would have bumped his salary to $391,800 in 2025, $400,000 in 2026 and $425,000 in 2027.

It’s unclear whether Moccia will sue NMSU over the firing. He has not responded to requests for comment from several media outlets.

As for the department’s future, Burdge and Ferme said the top goal will be implementing the suggested changes from the NMDOJ report. Those changes were described as: 

• Enhanced Coordination: Develop written guidelines for collaboration between the Athletic Department, Office of Institutional Equity, and Dean of Students.
• Mandatory Training: Institute recurring Title IX and anti-hazing training for all students and staff.
• Consistent Discipline: Enforce proportional disciplinary measures for student-athletes based on the severity of misconduct.
• Recruiting Scrutiny: Strengthen standards for recruiting practices and coach/player vetting.
• Leadership Commitment: Ensure senior leadership prioritizes and adequately funds safety initiatives and programming.
• Resource Center Creation: Establish a center dedicated to sexual violence education, prevention, and victim advocacy.

“I've just stepped into this role yesterday, and it was quite a surprise, so I do need a little bit of time, but one thing that I will say is that we'll continue with the forward momentum that we have built and that includes supporting everyone that I've mentioned before, in terms of our student-athletes, our coaches and our staff,” Burdge said.