Top boxing official, Agassi-Graf counsel Aguilar headed for Germany
One of the state’s top boxing officials has landed a professional haymaker.
Cisco Aguilar, a Nevada athletic commissioner and legal counsel and confidant of Andre Agassi and Stefanie Graf, is leaving his post with the commission this month and heading to Germany.
Aguilar has been awarded a Robert Bosch Foundation Fellowship, an initiative funded by the engineering and electronics company founded by German industrialist Robert Bosch in 1886. The institution provides 15 high-achieving Americans the opportunity to complete a yearlong professional development program.
A graduate of the University of Arizona’s James E. Rogers College of Law, Aguilar has served as counsel for Agassi and Graf for nearly a decade. He was appointed to the five-member state athletic commission in October 2009, taking over as chairman from 2013-2015. The organization sanctions all boxing and mixed-martial arts events in the state.
Aguilar’s final day with the commission is May 15. He heads for Berlin in July for three months of German-language education. Aguilar will then be placed at Porsche, Mercedes or BMW as a sports-marketing official, studying how those top-line auto companies forge athletic partnerships. He’ll then be reassigned to the FC Bayern Munich soccer club or the Bundesliga, the country’s top professional soccer league.
“The foundation will take us around Germany and the European Union to learn more about the importance of transatlantic relationships,” Aguilar says. “You have some of the biggest automotive brands in the world, and international soccer teams and leagues to study. It’s an awesome program and I’m pretty lucky to have been selected.”
Aguilar will continue to work with Agassi and Graf, though not in day-to-day operations, while he’s away. “The best part about this fellowship is I get to learn more about Stef and her homeland,” Aguilar says.
The final boxing event in Aguilar’s term on the commission was Saturday’s Canelo-Chavez card at T-Mobile Arena. But Aguilar had to follow the night’s action via social media, his flight back to town from a charity event in Phoenix delayed by four hours.
“I was bummed to miss it,” Aguilar says. “But it was an honor to serve over the past eight years, and Nevada will always be the fight capital of the world.”
John Katsilometes’ column runs daily in the A section. Contact him at jkatsilometes@reviewjournal.com. Follow @johnnykats on Twitter, @JohnnyKats1 on Instagram.