Nevada AD Stephanie Rempe outlines Wolf Pack facility improvements, future projects

During her first several months on the job as Nevada's athletic director, Stephanie Rempe has been able to travel to a number of Mountain West campuses. That has given her the ability to compare and contrast how the Wolf Pack's athletic facilities stack up against the rest of the Mountain West. Here takeaway?

"We have some work to do," Rempe said on Thursday's NSN Daily. "We absolutely have some work to do, but we know that and we're ready to roll up our sleeves and we've got a great staff. I think the community wants to have us be successful, and obviously we're going to ask for their support. But we need to get better. We need to have better facilities and we need to have actual facilities in certain cases like an indoor tennis facility, an indoor field house. But we're going to get there. I have no doubt in my mind whatsoever that we're going to figure it out and get there and it's going to be fun."

The Wolf Pack has completed a number of facility projects in the last half-decade, including the Ramon Sessions Performance Center (opened in 2018), a Mackay Stadium turf replacement and new track at that venue (2022), swimming and dive locker room renovation (2023), Hixson Park Softball Complex turf installment (2023) and the Wolf Den production room for broadcasting games (2022). Those projects have cost almost $9 million but are just the start of Nevada's hopes and dreams for facility improvements in the coming years.

The Wolf Pack also has secured $8 million in donations, including a record-setting $4 million gift from Eric and Linda Lannes, to build a two-story men's and women's basketball locker rooms/players lounges facility that's expected to break ground this summer. In January, Nevada football started a construction project to improve and increase its locker room and remodel its strength and conditioning center. That project will additionally provide on-campus locker rooms for the Wolf Pack soccer, track and field, tennis and golf programs.

Also on Nevada's wish list of improvements are projects at Peccole Park for Nevada baseball, two more phases of improvements for Nevada softball, an indoor tennis center and the white whale project for Wolf Pack athletics the last two-plus decades, an all-sport indoor practice facility that would give the football team somewhere to practice to shelter from the snow or 100-degree temperatures as well as poor air-quality days, which have become increasing more prominent in recent years (Nevada spent two weeks at Stanford in fall camp in 2021 due to wildfire smoke in the region).

Those proposed facility improvements will be crucial to build Nevada into a championship-caliber athletic department, which has been the goal of UNR president Brian Sandoval since he took over that job in October 2020.

"You almost can't quantify it," Rempe said of facility development. "It is so impactful in recruiting. The kids that come to campus, they want to see that you're committed to their program. They want to see where they're going to work out every day. They want to see where they're interacting with their teammates. They want to see the academic facilities in addition to the campus tours and all of that. When it comes to recruiting, it's critical. And then when the kids are here, their time is so condensed.

"We have to figure out ways the student-athletes can be efficient in the way they use their time, whether that's the academic center next to the weight room, next to the locker room, next to where they get food, all of those things so we can maximize their time because every minute spent training, every minute spent in the classroom, in the weight room or rehabbing, whatever the issue is, the more efficient you can be with that, the better people become. And we want that. We want to maximize everything."

In a two-part conversation with NSN, Rempe weighed in on a number of completed and upcoming facility projects, which you can read about below.

On the Cashell Fieldhouse improvements: "Cashell is the locker room project, and that's been on the books for a couple of years. It started in January. That is the football locker room, the equipment room and then it's a soccer locker room, it's a track and field locker room and then there's another locker room that tennis and golf will share. So all of those are going to be brand new. We're pretty excited about those. Attached to Cashell is a weight room. It's a football-only weight room. There's the other weight room at Sessions, and (Cashell) has not been renovated in about 20 years. 2003 is what I've heard. That project has sort of been based on supply chain and a variety of things. It has a new floor, it has painting and all of that. The actual weight equipment, we're still using the older equipment. The new weight equipment will be here over spring break. Around our spring football game is when we're going to unveil that, the look of it. We have some exciting news about it, but we're really excited about that project, and that directly impacts our student-athletes."

On the Ramon Sessions Performance Center: "There is no question in this day and age you need a practice facility for basketball. I've now seen a couple of schools in the conference, and I do feel like our practice facility is fantastic. Ramon Sessions is a tremendous supporter of ours, which is really neat. And I have found something at the University of Nevada that is unique, our former student-athletes care so much about this place. They really feel like it contributed a lot to who they are today. And we have had a lot of interest in our former student-athletes and wanting to give back because they know the impact it will make at our school. And Ramon is just one person that started that initiative several years ago and been a catalyst for that because you see across the country, there are not many former student-athletes that put their name on something and give back to their institution. We're excited about that, and we think there's some other exciting things coming forward about that, too."

On the basketball locker rooms/players lounges: "Super excited about that. That has been on the books for about a year and a half. August of 2021 is when it started, and we were given $8 million from three different donors. And Eric and Linda Lannes are just amazing people and they gave $4 million to get that project going. Over the last year and a half, it's been designed and we're going through that process of getting approvals and things like that. And we will have the guaranteed maximum price very soon. We have to work through a few more things with contract signings and we'll have a shovel in the ground this summer. We're really excited for that project."

On improving Nevada's nutritional services: "Nutrition is probably a top-three priority for me in terms of figuring out a way to help our student-athletes get the proper nutrition. One of the things that the NCAA changed last summer is you can feed your athletes 24 hours a day. Before there were all kinds of limits. The rules have have lightened up over the years, but now the most significant one is that you really can feed your athletes any time you want. We try to do that. We feed all of our student-athletes breakfast five days a week, and then each team will do supplemental food at different times, whether it's a pregame meal or after workouts or different things like that. But we need to figure out a way to provide them more food because I absolutely believe nutrition impacts winning and losing."

On Hixson Park's new playing surface: "That project has been critical, and that was one that was important to President Sandoval as well. That has been about $2.8 million and that's phase one. They will have a new playing surface. There's some work being done to the dugouts and then some infrastructure things that will help all of the spaces over there because tennis is over there and the track and field events are over there. We're excited about Hixson and getting out there to play. Everybody says the snow this year is not the norm. The field was supposed to be done in December, but we just needed five days of no snow. The snow had to melt. You couldn't remove the snow because of the the stuff under it. That is going to be available, I think, March 9 when we have our first home softball game, so it'll be really exciting for them to play on that field."

On more investments in women's facilities: "Coming in, I didn't have the history, and being here seven months now, I actually feel like we're doing a really good job across the board. We know that football weight room, that's the one that's exclusive to football. All the rest are everybody. Swim, men's and women's basketball, the locker rooms in track, soccer, women's tennis and golf and football. And then we also are going to take a space over at Lombardi for our men's tennis and our men's cross country and men's ski. I feel like we're doing it across the board. We're feeding every student-athlete. Not just the men, not just the women. We're trying to make sure that everybody feels like they're valued and that we're committed to all of them. That's a big priority, and we need to do a better job. Our tennis facility, we have outdoor courts. As you know, nowhere in Reno are there indoor courts to play tennis. And so our tennis team has had a difficult time, but we are using some temporary facilities that are going over to tennis where they will have a place to change and store their stuff and do all of that before they go out to the tennis court. Those are temporary things, but at least it is making an effort to allow those student-athletes to have something over by their courts where they can put their stuff and change and do some of those things."

On an all-sport indoor facility: "I would say that facility is critical. It's really unfortunate we do not have an indoor football facility based simply on the weather. And the weather could be the smoke. The weather can be the snow. And that's a priority, and we need to figure it out. It is obviously very expensive, and there's a variety of models that we're working through. And there is an initiative to start to do some studying to see what is feasible to do for athletics and campus, figuring out how that works. But it's a priority for us. I do think we want to figure out if there's a way to be creative and a way to figure out how to get that done sooner rather than later because it is this critical."

On support the Wolf Pack is getting from university: "I have gotten nothing but incredible support from campus. They have been great partners from the leadership over there to working with student affairs to obviously President Sandoval, and it starts with him at the top. Only being here seven months, not going through an entire fiscal year and planning for next year's budget, we have some challenges that we're going to have to continue to work through. With the president, I have no reason to believe that there's anything but incredible support. But we have a lot of needs. And so we have to continue to work through that and see what exactly that looks like as we go forward from an operating budget, from a facility standpoint and then obviously he's one of those people that just continues to open doors and move barricades and things like that. He's just been a tremendous partner, as is the rest of campus."

On Peccole Park improvements: "With Peccole, we do have an architect that we've hired that's been working through some various models, and we do have some money for that. We're going to have to continue to raise money for Peccole, for phase two for softball, for an indoor tennis facility. The list goes on and on. There are some ideas for golf here in town and collaborating with First Tee on some things. And then our ski program, we need to continue to invest in ski, which is fun. We have it across the board. We need to continue to invest and figure out creative ways to do things to generate more revenue."

On how Wolf Pack fans can help get this projects completed: "Obviously it's important no matter who you are. Whether it's $7.75 a month to Strengthen the Pack or Eric and Linda Lannes giving the money that they have given. We need all of it. And so we are rolling out a website (NevadaWolfPack.com/CapitalProjects) that is talking and focused on the capital projects and how they can help. We have a staff and people ready to answer questions and give feedback and find out what the interests are. It's up to the donor. We want the donors to give their money where they think it's most valuable and something that they're passionate about. But everything helps, and we want to talk to anybody that's interested and willing to help."