Rico Sylvester is in his first season with the Runnin’ Utes after joining Alex Jensen’s staff in April of 2025.
Sylvester comes to the Salt Lake City after spending the 2024-25 season with the Sacramento Kings in the basketball operations office. While there, he served as the scouting contact for the organization and coordinated logistics for every scout. In addition, Sylvester was in charge of conducting pre-draft dossiers on all potential draft prospects for the front office among his other day-to-day duties.
He began journey in basketball as an undergrad, serving as a practice player on Cuonzo Martin’s team from 2019-21. While with the Tigers, Sylvester helped the coaching staff with practice set-up/breakdown and assisted with drills. He also got hands-on experience with individual workouts.
After graduation, Sylvester joined the Louisiana Tech men’s basketball staff as a graduate assistant for the 2021-22 campaign before following head coach Eric Konkol to Tulsa for two seasons (2022-24). As a GA, he was integral in assisting the staff with opponent scouting, player development, scheduling and several other operational duties. He also served as the liaison for recruiting visits at Tulsa.
During his time with the Golden Hurricanes, Sylvester participated in the NBA Future Basketball Operations Stars Program. The six-month long program was led by the NBA’s top officials in its basketball operations department and learned the framework of working inside an NBA front office at various levels and departments. Sylvester finished as 1-of-10 participants in his 80-person cohort chosen to be a part of the league operations working group for the 2024 NBA All-Star Game and 2024 NBA Draft Combine.
Sylvester earned his bachelor’s degree in parks, recreation and sport with an emphasis in sports management from Missouri in 2021 before obtaining his MBA from Tulsa in 2023.