How sports changed the life of Nevada's Stephanie Rempe, one of 10 female ADs in FBS

The are only two times Nevada athletic director Stephanie Rempe remembers periods in her life without sports.

The first was during her first semester of college at Arizona when she decided to simply be a student.

The second was after she got her Master's degree in sports administration and was a waitress at Applebee's for three months.

Both of those short stints without sports showed her how much athletics meant to her life and changed her focus from being a business student in undergraduate school who envisioned life in a boardroom to the reality she created as one of the nation's few female FBS athletic directors.

"It's hard to quantify what it's meant for my life," Rempe said of sports. "I don't know a phase in my life where sports hasn't been part of it. I tried every sport growing up. I had a lot of fun in high school. I did go to college not to play sports, and after a fall semester, I realized I was pretty lost because it had created every bit of structure I'd had in my life, so I ended up playing volleyball at Arizona."

Rempe became a standout scholarship starter for the Wildcats, leading the program to the Sweet 16 as a senior in 1993 — by beating rival Arizona State in the second round — before later earning her master’s in sports administration, which put her on the path to eventually becoming Nevada's athletic director following almost 25 years in athletic administration.

Rempe is one of 10 female athletics directors currently in the FBS, which has 131 schools. There have never been more than 12 sitting female ADs at the FBS level with women generally being underrepresented in those posts. Rempe said she's thankful her hard work landed her this opportunity at Nevada, which was paved via a job offer by UNR president Brian Sandoval.

"Being one of the 10, I think it's a testament to Brian Sandoval," Rempe said. "I think it was important to him and it was important he could see me in that role, and I think that goes for every job. Anybody who's hiring, when you're meeting people, you need to be able to see that person in that role, and President Sandoval could see me in this role. Obviously, it's been an honor to be here, and I'm excited about it. It's important that I do my part to make sure that I'm successful here.

"There are definitely more women in leadership roles in athletic departments. It used to be just one, and I think that's the progression, right? The more there are in administration, then they get the nod to be the athletic director, so there's definitely been significant progress."

Since becoming Nevada's athletic director last July, Rempe has hired numerous women to the Wolf Pack's leadership team, including Merlene Aitken-Smith (Nevada's deputy athletic director), Casey Stangel (Nevada's senior woman administrator), Liz Savage (Nevada's director of development) and Janell Kay (Nevada's manager of athletic affairs). Aitken-Smith also is the first African-American member of the department's senior leadership team in many years.

Rempe said having a diverse leadership team is a point of emphasis.

"Surrounding yourself with really capable people, you kind of go out and see who's out there and you go out and recruit and find the best," Rempe said. "I'm very conscious of the gender makeup of the department because I think that's important. You have to have balance. You have to have people that can weigh in from lots of different perspectives. I hired our deputy (Aitken-Smith), and it was really important to me to hire someone who sees the world different than I do, and she does. And that's been really helpful for me as a leader as well as our department to know that somebody might disagree with what the athletic director says, and that's OK. That's important in leadership."

The greatest lessons Rempe has learned in her life are traced back to sports, she said. Those have helped her become one of the most successful females in her field. She leads Nevada's athletic department with a sports-focused mindset.

"What you learn in sports directly correlates to life, and the things you learn in sports you can't learn anywhere else," Rempe said. "I don't think there's anything that can teach you what sports teaches you, and those are life skills that stay with you forever."

Rempe also credits her parents for not only introducing her to sports but also reinforcing the fact there were no limits in what she could achieve. Her father, in particular, was extremely competitive and taught her the value of winning and how to deal with the adversity associated with losing.

"I always say that men who have daughters see the world a little bit differently," said Rempe, who has two children of her own, including a daughter, Riley. "And I know that happened for my dad once he had a daughter. I think he started to see the world differently, and he never let on with me that there were going to be things I couldn't do or opportunities I wouldn't have. I just didn't envision that. Now, I think as I'm older, I do see there are some things, but I didn't grow up thinking that, and I sure as heck don't think Riley is limited on opportunities that she has available to her."

Rempe believes in the power of role modeling, which is something she experienced as a college athlete when seeing Arizona's Tracy Shake working in the Wildcats' athletic department. Rempe serves as that role model for current Wolf Pack female athletes, and she wants them to know they can achieve their goals, whether it's in athletics or elsewhere, no matter how grand those dreams are.

"Any limits for me were ones I created by choices I made," Rempe said. "I don't feel like there were things put in front of me that I couldn't get over. But that also comes from from being in sports. I really think it all comes back to sports. I was a walk-on. I was always the hardest worker or I go back to different accolades I got, and it's pretty funny, but it all comes back to kind of having that blue-collar mentality, which I also think that's the University of Nevada. I've always had the mindset that you have to outwork other people to get what you want."

You can watch the full feature on Stephanie Rempe below.