Member Profile: Cary Groth
Excerpt from Article by Chad Hartley, Reno Gazette-Journal


It was a year that saw continued struggles in football and continued record-breaking success in men’s basketball. It also saw an unusually high amount of coaching turnover, attendance woes and criminal acts by student-athletes that made national headlines. Cary Groth’s first year as Nevada’s athletic director was a busy one.

What is the one aspect of this job that you did not know about or realize before you took the job?
Probably the need to build upon the infrastructure that was already in place, in terms of policy, process. That is not critical of anything Chris Ault had done, but to take the next step, we needed to put some procedures in place that will allow us to move forward. Part of that is to generate a strategic plan, a road map to success. We needed to get everybody on the same page. All of the coaches, all of the administrators, they all have their own vision. We all need to be on the same page so that we can work towards those goals together. Those goals are our priorities for facilities, resources, personnel, competitive goals, expectations. We were just getting on the same page so we when move together, we are moving forward as a swarm of bees. We are pretty close to having our strategic plan together.

How important is it for football to match the success that men’s basketball has achieved?
Society demands, our culture demands a strong football program. That is what I-A is. Without football, you are just Division I. It is very important for football to progress, to make improvements, to become competitive. With some of the things we have in place, we are looking for that to happen. Next year is a very critical year for our program.

Has it been an unusual level of coaching turnover that you have faced since you took this job?
It has, though I don’t have anything to compare it to. Typically, when new leadership comes in, there is change. For most of the people who have left, they have gone on to institutions that were dream jobs...Turnover is good, sometimes. Change is good. If you have a good balance of your longtime coaches, and then there is fresh blood, fresh ideas, that is good. We have hired some outstanding coaches, and I am very pleased with the quality and experience of the people we have brought on board.

Since your arrival, the school has changed its policy with attendance counts — providing actual attendance figures instead of just a tickets-distributed figure. Why was that important?
It made it difficult for the real numbers to come out. We are a public institution. The athletics program is supported so much by donors and ticket holders. We have an obligation to the media to give you the numbers. There will always be two numbers – tickets sold and through the door. That is how Major League Baseball does it and that is the way we will do it. It is important, if only for the record books, to have those accurate numbers...

What is the most important thing that we have not covered until this point?
The academics. We have hired a director of academics (Sandy Hafner), and she is very good. She played basketball at Iowa State and has two degrees. She gets it. She is making a difference in our program. We have too many student-athletes that are right on the border. You typically don’t want to have more than 5 percent of your student-athlete population to be borderline and right now we are at 10 percent. That is a high number for us. Can we handle it? You bet. But we need to reduce that number. We will get better with our graduation rate and our retention rate. There is no question about that. We will get better. Gone is the day when coaches say, “You came here to play X sport.” You came here to get a degree and then play X sport. That is what has changed. I think everybody is on board with that.

Is this job everything you hoped or thought it would be?
I love it. I am very fortunate to come into a situation where the people here love what they do. For anybody, just like a head coach, the second year is always the most critical. The first year, you are still finding your own way, and people are checking you out, too. But what can we do that second year? How are we going to perform. I think next year’s annual review will be a lot more interesting. The people of Reno are incredible people. They just want a competitive program and a program that has integrity. And it is our job to provide that.

For the full article, click on http://www.rgj.com/news/stories/html/2005/04/16/97313.php