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Nevada teams bring home WAC's Commissioner's Cup

By Dick Davies

Seldom does a day go by when a small army of athletes, coaches and athletic directors does not utter those tired, trite and timeless words: “We are going to take it to the next level.”

Nevada athletic director Cary Groth does not resort to such worn-out cliches, but when asked to identify her goals for the next five years of Wolf Pack athletics, she says the program is indeed moving toward a higher level of competition and recognition. Her basic expectations are that each team be competitive within the Western Athletic Conference, with postseason play being the norm and not the exception. While excelling (and winning with reasonable regularity) in the conference remains the primary focus, she also has set a five-year goal of elevating the program from a regional focus to a national one.

“It is time for us to become recognized across the United States as a program that can compete successfully with the top programs in the country,” she says.

Groth’s ambitious goal is compatible with the expectations of the University’s new, high-energy president, Milton Glick. A high-quality, nationally recognized athletic program is but one part of his ambitious vision for the University that anticipates competing for academic honors with the nation’s leading public universities. Glick sees the program providing positive national media exposure, as well as strengthening bonds with the alumni and community. In meetings with athletics department staff, he has made it clear he appreciates a “culture of competition,” and that he expects coaches and athletes to conduct themselves professionally “on the field, in the classroom, and in the community.”

Glick and Groth are thus of the same mind. Whether or not the program — all sports, not just a select few — makes it to the elusive “next level” during the next five years remains to be seen. But Groth believes that the program is now positioned to do just that. The women’s programs have become highly competitive within the Western Athletic Conference, with soccer, swimming and diving, and softball all garnering recent championships. And, in the past five seasons, Kim Gervonsoni’s arduous rebuilding effort has moved the women's basketball team from just three wins to 17 and a postseason National invitation Tournament berth.

The men’s basketball team has enjoyed a four-year run of unparalleled success that has included four NCAA tournament victories, and a revitalized football program has earned postseason bowl bids the past two years, defeating Central Florida in 2005 and losing by one point to perennial national powerhouse Miami in 2006. The overall upward trajectory of the program is that Nevada claimed the Commissioner’s Cup as the conference’s top all-around performer for 2006-07. Most impressive of all is that for two years, the authoritative Penn State University-York report on the status of women’s athletics has listed Nevada as best in the nation in overall compliance with federal gender equity mandates of Title IX.

Competing successfully at the national level is both exhilarating and chilling. A visit with Groth tends to make the cautious observer appreciate that it just might be possible. Thirty years ago, such expectations would have been laughable. In 1979, the move in some sports from the smaller West Coast Athletic Conference into the Big Sky Conference seemed a daunting challenge. Thirteen years later, with football, baseball and swimming-diving providing the only consistently winning programs, the Wolf Pack moved to a lower-tier Division I-A conference, the Big West. When the opportunity to join the more prestigious Western Athletic Conference presented itself in 1998, it was the University’s academic quality and Reno’s geographic location, not the stature of its teams, that appealed most to conference officials.

By that time, however, a fledgling “mid-major” sports program had been established on a strong foundation. The program had never been besmirched by a serious NCAA violation. President Joe Crowley insisted upon a strong commitment to the academic side of the program and worked closely with Athletic Director Chris Ault and the Pack PAWS booster organization to assure that the women’s programs were fully funded. In 20 years at the helm, Ault raised the funds required to provide Division-IA-quality facilities. Peccole Park provided an attractive home field for Gary Powers’ winning baseball program; a remodeled Virginia Street Gym did the same for Devin Scruggs’ steadily improving volleyball team; Mackay Stadium was expanded to 31,545 seats and a modern press box and revenue-producing private suites were constructed; Cashell Field House was linked to a state-of-the art physical training and therapy facility that ranks among the best in the nation; and Legacy Hall was constructed to house the growing administrative and coaching staffs.

The Crowley-Ault emphasis upon academic and fiscal integrity has continued under the Glick-Groth regime. Each head coach works under a contract that includes strong wording regarding compliance with NCAA regulations, academic achievement and the behavior of athletes on and off the field. Groth’s files contain detailed charts tracking each program: long-term trends of team grade-point averages, graduation rates, budgets, as well as strength of schedule statistics, postseason invitations and won-loss records.

Groth emphasizes national visibility in future football schedules. This fall the Wolf Pack opens the season on the road at Nebraska and Northwestern. Back-to-back visits to football-crazed Lincoln and a Big Ten campus symbolize the national reach that Groth envisions for the entire program. “We need to have much greater visibility in the Midwest,” she affirms, anticipating it will provide fertile, new recruiting territory. Next year, Nevada hosts Big 12 opponent Texas Tech and travels to Missouri. In 2009, the Pack will open the season at Notre Dame and play Missouri at Mackay Stadium. Men’s basketball, of course, has already moved into that rarified level in the past few years, playing road or neutral-site games against Kansas, Connecticut, Gonzaga, California and UCLA , in addition to tangling with Michigan State, Texas, Georgia Tech, Illinois and Memphis in the NCAA tournament.

This coming academic year, Groth will oversee a 17-team program with a budget of $15.5 million. While that figure might shock those who remember the lean times of yesteryear, it is a relatively paltry amount when compared to the budgets of programs that Groth anticipates will dot future schedules. It is recognized that football ticket sales have to be substantially increased, that membership in the booster club needs to grow exponentially, and that major donors have to be cultivated. Groth is working hard on all of those fronts, acknowledging that substantially increased funding is essential to underwrite a nationally competitive program.

There are exciting things currently in the works: Construction began in spring 2007 on an expansion of Cashell Fieldhouse to include an academic performance center. On the recently acquired land that once was the Manogue High School campus, the Hixson Softball Park opened March 29, and Groth is hopeful that it will soon be joined in Wolf Pack Park by a new track and field complex and an indoor-outdoor tennis facility that will provide a proper setting for the rapidly improving men’s and women’s teams as well as providing memberships for the northern Nevada community. She is anticipating construction of a much-needed indoor practice facility for basketball, and with pressure mounting for other uses for the Virginia Street Gym, a state-of-the-art volleyball center.

Groth is hopeful that additional programs can be established. There are currently 11 women’s and seven men’s sports, and she says that reinstating men’s track and field, dropped as a money-saving measure in 1995, is her highest priority. She is also hopeful that men’s volleyball and soccer can be added.

Many fans look to the day when Nevada and UNLV compete in the same conference. Right now, the frenetic period of conference realignment seems to have abated, but Groth is poised to make a move if the right opportunity comes along. Although she is comfortable with the far-flung Western Athletic Conference, she laments the expense and missed classes due to extensive travel (Louisiana Tech to the southeast, Hawaii to the distant west). She expresses interest in finding a conference home where Nevada would be more closely associated with comprehensive, doctoral-granting state universities that offer research-intensive academic programs. The logical move, fans suggest, would be to the Mountain West, home to the likes of New Mexico, Utah, Colorado State and yes, UNLV. Groth suggests, in all seriousness, that while the Mountain West might be the logical next stop, Nevada is actually better suited academically, geographically and athletically for membership in the Pac-10.

Now that would be taking it to the next level.

Dick Davies is a professor of history in the College of Liberal Arts.

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