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UHSAA Executive Director Rob Cuff, center, and his wife Sonya, left, were honored before the start of a state championship baseball at at Utah Valley University in May of 2026. (Darnell Dickson, Daily Herald)

Darnell Dickson, Daily Herald

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UHSAA Executive Director Rob Cuff, right, walks off the baseball field at Utah Valley University with UHSAA staff member Audrey Barton after being honored before his retirement. (Darnell Dickson, Daily Herald)

Darnell Dickson, Daily Herald

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Former Mountain View basketball coach Rob Cuff, the executive director of the Utah High School Activities Association, is set to retire at the end of the 2025-26 school year.

Courtesy UHSAA

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UHSAA Executive Director Rob Cuff and his wife, Sonya, were honored before the start of a state championship baseball game at Utah Valley University on May of 2026. (Darnell Dickson, Daily Herald)

Darnell Dickson, Daily Herald

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UHSAA Executive Director Rob Cuff (right) hands the 4A boys volleyball state runner-up trophy to Timpanogos players at the UCCU Center in Orem on Thursday, May 8, 2025.

Jared Lloyd, Daily Herald

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UHSAA Executive Director Rob Cuff, left, shares are joke with former Provo boys basketball coach Craig Drury during a ceremony inducting Drury in the Circle of Honor at the UCCU Center in Orem on Wednesday, February 28, 2024.

Darnell Dickson, Daily Herald

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Around 800 of Rob Cuff’s colleagues from around the country showed up in Salt Lake for his retirement party.

Actually, the occasion was the annual convention for the National Federation of High School Associations in June, which was hosted by Cuff and the Utah High School Activities Association. But after 33 years in education — the past 17 as the executive director of the UHSAA — the event was a near-perfect culmination of Cuff’s long and productive professional journey.

There were meetings and workshops, of course, but it was also an opportunity for Cuff and the UHSAA to show the attendees the wonders of Utah.

“The convention was one of the top five highlights of my administrative career,” Cuff said. “We’ve only hosted as the state association one other time and that was in 1978. Probably 100 to 150 people came then. There were so many this time that had never been to Salt Lake, who had never been to the mountains, and who never realized that Salt Lake City is such a sports hub, with hockey and with basketball and with what we do with baseball. And certainly the Olympics.”

There was a dinner at the Utah Olympic Park at the base of the two slides. On another day, the UHSAA chartered 26 buses to take the attendees through the canyon and into the mountains at Park City. Food trucks were set up for another dinner as part of the festivities.

“It was a really fun weekend,” Cuff said. “I was kidding with some people that everybody was coming to my retirement bash. I can’t remember another executive director who retired at the same time they were hosting such a big event. But it was really rewarding for me to be able to say a lot of things at the conference, to thank a lot of people and show gratitude for everyone who has had an impact and influenced me and mentored me.”

Reflections

At the end of this week, Cuff will officially leave the UHSAA offices in Murray for the last time on his way into retirement.

“Certainly the journey has been fulfilling because of being with the student athletes and students in general, because we do performing arts, too,” Cuff said. “That’s really why I got into coaching and teaching. That’s the ‘why’ of what we do, is to be with the students. All of the great memories that I can think of over all that journey all those years would be the times that we are with the students, whether it be state championships, student leadership conferences, captain meetings, awards banquets, all of those things are just the reward for doing what we do in education.”

A BYU graduate and the son of Richfield coaching legend Bob Cuff, Rob Cuff began his coaching career at Mountain View in Orem, where he won a pair of state boys basketball titles and was a high school football official for 12 years.

He said joining the UHSAA in 2001 was simply the right opportunity at the right time.

“There was a position opening because they were adding a third assistant director,” Cuff said. “I loved coaching and we were coming off back-to-back state championships. But I knew that I didn’t want to coach forever. I knew I would get into administration at some point. I just felt that working at the activities association, doing the state championships, thinking sports all day every day in administration was a route that really intrigued me.

“I interviewed with the executive director at the time, Evan Excell, and the question was, ‘Are you ready to give up coaching?’ I’d only been coaching for seven years. It was a really tough decision. I had gone through the whole summer with my team. It was one of the toughest things I’ve ever had to do, telling the players I was leaving.”

Cuff accepted the job and spent eight years as an assistant director before becoming executive director in 2009, only the sixth person to hold that position in the 99-year history of the association.

Growing and learning

Cuff was part of a huge growth period for the UHSAA. When he took the associate director job in 2001, there were 122 schools in Utah with 85,000 participants. Today, there are 160 schools and 113,000 participants. Most recently, the UHSAA added boys and girls lacrosse, boys volleyball and e-sports.

“One main mission and goal is the education-based activities and the influence that we have on the students to be better citizens, better students,” Cuff said. “But our coaches are the ones who really provide the positive influence and the impact. We just provide the car and they drive it. It takes a village from administrators to coaches to officials. They love to give back and they love to be part of the other half of education that is student activity.”

Cuff served as the president of the National Federation of High School Associations from 2021-22 and had a four-year term on the NFHS Board of Directors. He’s served on various committees and boards over the years.

He initiated the “Raise the Bar” statewide sportsmanship program, which promotes the responsibilities that come with the privileges of participating in high school activities. One of the biggest challenges for Cuff and his staff came during the pandemic, which led to the cancelation of all sports activities in the spring of 2020. Utah was the first state to hold football games safely just a few months later.

“We were just coming out of COVID and trying to get everybody back on track,” Cuff said. “Even though COVID was the most challenging thing I had to deal with as an administrator, it was also very, very satisfying that Utah did it right. We brought back sports in the fall of 2020 faster than any other state.”

The job has not been without its difficult moments with parents, transfers, reclassification and suspensions, and the buck always stops with the executive director. Cuff leaned heavily on the experience and advice from his mentors — former UHSAA colleagues Excell, Dave Wilkey and Jerry Bovee, former Mountain View athletic director Joel Gardner and former American Fork basketball coach Carl Ingersoll, among others — to help handle the tough assignments.

“When there’s a concern or an issue, the executive director has to take a part of that home with him all the time,” Cuff said. “So I think that’s been the most challenging. The most difficult thing is just trying to do the very best you possibly can in this position, knowing you’re not going to make every single decision absolutely correct or every person happy. I really, truly believe that the challenges and the adversity really helped us become more successful.”

All the winners

As the executive director, Cuff has often had the responsibility of handing the state championship trophy to the winning team at the end of a tournament, a series of moments he truly cherishes.

“One of the special moments was I got to hand my daughter (Kilee) the trophy when Skyridge won the volleyball championship in 2018,” he said. “She was a senior on that team. I’ve been able to hand the state championship trophy to my brother (Ryan Cuff) when his teams won a few times, and to my nephews who were on some teams.”

Rob Cuff also often hands out the runner-up trophy, and that has special meaning, as well.

“We take pride at the association in handing out that runner-up trophy,” he said. “We give out 140 state championship trophies every year and that means we give out 140 runner-up trophies. We know those silvers don’t mean as much at the moment, but over time, they mean almost as much because of all the hours and all the team togetherness, the commitment and perseverance and resilience that goes into it. Those teams all have qualities of a winner. There is just one champion but they’re all winners.”

Despite the difficult times, Cuff said his memories will be mostly positive.

“The things that I’ll remember most are every time I was with a student athlete,” he said. You have the meetings, you have the legislature, you have litigation, you have hearings and appeals and all of these other administrative duties and responsibilities. But the thing that keeps you coming back to your job and loving your job is is the students themselves. And the joy in watching a tournament from start to finish and seeing those those athletes just battle and knowing that there’s only going to be one state champion. But seeing the effort that they put on that field or the court or the floor or the pool, the golf course, is just the thrill.”

Riding off into the sunset

Ryan Bishop, a former Wasatch High School principal and coach, is taking over as UHSAA executive director. Bishop has spent 27 years in public education.

“Ryan is going to be great,” Cuff said. “He was an assistant director for me (at the UHSAA) from 2014 to 2017. He’s been prepared to take this job as well as anyone. He’s really excited and half the battle is having the passion for it and loving what you do.”

What’s next for Cuff?

“We’re going to take a deep breath and enjoy some family for a little bit,” he said. “My wife (Sonya) is going to keep working at Skyridge for a year. She’s on a team with the administration and the counseling department and she loves what she’s doing. We have four children with three grandchildren right now and when I announced to my board that I was going to retire, two more of my children announced they were pregnant. So I have two grandsons that will be born this fall, one in August and one in October.

“I think we’re going to do some church service at some point and we’ll kind of see what we do for our next chapter. I can go to some of my grandkids’ games and not have to talk shop, or about how good an official is supposed to be or what kids are transferring or why a school is in the wrong classification.’

Cuff will take everything he learned from his time at the UHSAA with him.

“I would say basically the key to anything in life is if you’re happy doing it it and willing to serve,” he said. “It’s not success that is the key to happiness but happiness is the key to success.”