Director of Athletics Cary Groth In her eighth year as leader of the Wolf Pack, University of Nevada Director of Athletics Cary Groth is committed to maintaining a strong athletics program that operates with integrity, allows Nevada student-athletes and programs to compete at the highest levels and serves the campus and community. Her vision and lofty goals have helped lead Nevada to unprecedented success on and off the field of competition. Most recently, Groth has been instrumental in helping to put the Wolf Pack in a position to join the Mountain West Conference in 2012, a move that will benefit all of its sports programs as well as the university and community. "The invitation to join the Mountain West Conference is a reflection of the success and tradition that our student-athletes, coaches and staff have demonstrated both academically and athletically. It is an honor to join the Mountain West Conference, and we look forward to partnering and competing with its outstanding member institutions." In her seven-plus years at the helm of Wolf Pack Athletics, revenues have increased in nearly every category, including sponsorships, royalties and licensing and concessions. She initiated a successful, comprehensive sponsorship, television, radio and internet rights partnership with Learfield Sports in the form of Wolf Pack Sports Properties as well as an all-sports footwear and apparel contract for the university with Nike. Football attendance and season ticket revenue have also increased significantly with football attendance jumping up 111 percent since 2004 and revenue up over 43 percent in the last five years. An aggressive scheduling philosophy has matched the Wolf Pack up against some of the nation's best in all sports and has secured home games against top-notch BCS competition. Nevada's athletics department contributes over $18.5 million in economic impact in northern Nevada and Wolf Pack student-athletes, coaches and staff also complete over 2,500 hours of community service annually. Groth has been instrumental in fundraising over $36 million over the last seven-plus years. Some of those donations have allowed for the completion of the E.L. Cord Academic and Athletics Performance Complex, a 46,000-plus-square-foot facility which provides Nevada's student-athletes with top-notch resources. That project included renovations to Cashell Fieldhouse, including new locker rooms, as well as completion of the state-of-the art Roger B. Primm Sports Medicine and Strength Center and Marguerite Wattis Petersen Academic Center, which opened in the spring of 2008.
Under Groth's watch, the Wolf Pack has enjoyed an era of program-wide success with all of Nevada's teams participating in postseason play. The Wolf Pack has captured 20 WAC Championships in her tenure, including men's basketball crowns from 2004-08, three women's swimming and diving titles from 2007-09, three softball championships (2006, 2008-09), a pair of football titles (2005 and 2010), two indoor track and field titles (2003-04) and individual titles by cross country in 2004, women's soccer in 2006 and men's golf in 2007. The crown jewel in her Wolf Pack tenure came at the end of the 2006-07 season when Nevada won the WAC's Commissioner's Cup as the best overall athletics department in the conference for the first time in school history. Nevada has also finished second in the Commissioner's Cup standings twice, including in 2008-09 when the Wolf Pack missed winning the title by less than one point. The Wolf Pack's Graduation Success Rate for student-athletes is at its all-time high of 78 percent and has improved in each of the last seven years, while Nevada's teams have turned in seven consecutive years of penalty-free academic performance in the NCAA's Academic Progress Rates (APR) report. Nevada has seen 366 of its student-athletes graduate in the past six years, including 69 in the 2010-11 academic year. Nevada's athletics department also has been recognized for its accomplishments off the playing field. Nevada was listed as one of the top athletics departments in the nation in providing opportunities for women in sports in each of the last four years of the national Gender Equity Scorecard study, including two years as the country's best in 2006 and 2007. Nevada has also been recognized by the Laboratory for Diversity in Sport at Texas A&M University for its accomplishments in the areas of diversity and was one of only 10 universities in the country to win the group's Diversity in Athletics Award in 2005-06. Prior to her arrival on the Nevada campus in March of 2004, Groth's professional career was marked by decades of excellence at her alma mater, Northern Illinois University, including 10 years as director of athletics from 1994-2004 and 10 years as an athletics administrator before that. Groth's professional profile has risen nationally through dedication, perseverance, and a commitment to doing things the right way. She has been recognized and honored extensively throughout her career. She was named to the "Super 50: Women's Sports Executives" in Street & Smith's Sports Business Journal in 1998. National accolades have been awarded to her from several organizations, including recognition in 2003 as the National Association of Collegiate Women's Athletic Administrators Division I Administrator of the Year and the Women's Basketball Coaches' Association Administrator of the Year. Groth was selected and served on the Department of Education's Commission on Opportunity in Athletics in 2002-03. She was inducted into the Northern Illinois Athletics Hall of Fame in 2010. She has also been recognized locally for her leadership by the Girl Scouts of the Sierra Nevada in 2008 and the Nevada Women's Fund in 2009. |
 
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