Dec. 6, 2004
INTRODUCTORY PRESS CONFERENCE FOR NEW UNLV FOOTBALL HEAD COACH MIKE SANFORD
AT UNLV FOUNDATIONS BUILDING
UNLV DIRECTOR OF ATHLETICS MIKE HAMRICK:
"Good evening, thank you very much for coming. This is a great day today for UNLV athletics and UNLV football. As many of you know, two months ago John Robinson announced his retirement as the head football coach here at UNLV. We appreciate everything John has done for the program. He's been outstanding. He's a dear friend and he'll be a friend of this program for a long, long time.
With that said, the president gave me the authority to go out and seek candidates for her approval for this position of head football coach, which we started immediately and today we will conclude that process by naming a head football coach.
The search was very thorough and there were many candidates that were interested in the job for a lot of reasons. I was overwhelmed with the interest that I received in this position. We brought four candidates to campus and on Friday, Dr. Harter and I made a decision to hire a new head football coach.
I'm excited and thrilled. This particular individual meets all the criteria that the president and I set for the coaching position - Southern California ties, offensive-minded and a quality person to go with the other people that we have at the program and the people that we have brought in. It is also someone who more than anything, wanted to be at UNLV.
We don't want people that don't want to be here. We want people who want to come here and coach and make this thing work and to the "T" we found that. Everything that we wanted, we found."
UNLV PRESIDENT DR. CAROL HARTER:
"It is my very great pleasure today to welcome Mike Sanford to UNLV. I would like to share with you just a few things about this very enjoyable search process that Mike put so much effort into conducting. As Mike said, we had some truly distinguished candidates. We brought only four of those to campus but I assure you that there were many more who were interested in the position and that was wonderfully refreshing to us to have such tremendous interest. It was clear, though, that Mike Sanford was our top pick.
Mike brings to us some unparalleled experience, having coached in some of the nation's premier programs and conferences, including the Big 10, the Pac 10 with USC and Stanford and as well as with Notre Dame. He has coached in various positions in nine different bowl games, including two Rose Bowls with USC.
He both played for and coached with John Robinson, so he has had some wonderful mentors and is tied very deeply to our own program through John. He has shepherded the development of many first-rate players, including Johnnie Morton, Keyshawn Johnson and Tim Dwight, just to name a few.
In addition to all of the experience on the field, Mike also brings dedication to academic excellence among his athletes and a real commitment to the development of his players as human beings and students as well as athletes. He is really the perfect fit for us at this point to take our team and our school to the next level in football.
Again I have to reinforce what a wonderful job Mike Hamrick does when we are searching for a coach. He did it with the search for (men's basketball head coach) Lon Kruger and he has done it again. He spends months and months working up lists, talking to people and flying to places to meet with people who are interested. He really dedicates himself totally to the recruitment process and it is wonderful that it can bring to us people like Lon Kruger and now Mike Sanford."
NEW UNLV FOOTBALL HEAD COACH MIKE SANFORD:
"First of all I would just like to say that I'm excited about this opportunity. I am honored to be named to this position. This is a culmination for me of 27 years of my career and I'm prepared and excited for this and this is what I've been waiting for.
I would like to thank President Carol Harter and Mike Hamrick for how they handled the process. It was very professional. I was treated with utmost respect and the whole thing was a great experience from the very beginning.
I would also like to thank my wife, Melinda, who has been married to me the same amount of time I've been coaching, and that says a lot for her. I also want to thank all the Rebel football fans and the Rebel family for your support. The support has been fantastic since my wife and I got here and we are excited to be a part of the UNLV football program.
First of all I think one of the things that will be a trademark of the things I will bring here is that we are going to be an exciting, offensive football team. We are going to spread the field out, score points and we are going to be exciting. That is something that is going to be a trademark of UNLV football from here on.
My goal here is to number one, raise the standard and raise the expectation level of our players and of our fans. Our expectation level should be, and my expectation level is, to win the Mountain West Conference championship, go to a bowl game and to be ranked in the top 20 in the nation every year. That's how I'm going to coach, that's how I'm going to recruit and that's I am going to approach this whole process from the beginning.
I am going to be the head football coach but I am also going to call the plays. I am going to put together a great staff. In my opinion they will be the best coaching staff, and in no offense to anybody else, but they will be the best coaching staff in the history of UNLV and what I believe the best coaching staff in college football.
We will be a disciplined football team. I think that's very important going in. We are going to hold players accountable for being disciplined and doing things the way they are coached to do them. That is going to be a critical part of our program. We are going to be the team that plays smart, not the team that plays dumb.
We will be a team that plays with great effort and enthusiasm. I am going to coach with great effort and enthusiasm and our players are going to play with great effort and enthusiasm.
The way I liken this process is it is just like a train. This train is moving down the tracks right now. We are a train and we are on the tracks and we are going. Either you are going to get on board the train or it is going to run over you.
We are going to be an aggressive recruiting staff. I have started right from the moment that I was named the head football coach. Our first and foremost area of recruiting will be the city of Las Vegas. We are going to try to keep guys here in Las Vegas. We are going to recruit California. My familiarity is Southern California, including the Inland Empire, Orange County, San Diego County and Los Angeles. That is going to be a major focus of our recruiting. We will find the best players there and we will get guys that love the game of football and play with great effort and will be the type of players that you will be proud that represent the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
One of the things that I believe in greatly too is that we are going to be a team that works hard. I know that is old fashioned and simple, but our team is going to work hard. We are going to be the hardest working coaching staff in the country, we are going to be the hardest recruiting staff in the country and we are going to expect the same things from our players. They are going to be hard working. I was extremely excited and impressed with the football team that I had the opportunity to meet with today. They were wide-eyed, they were on the edge of their seats and they were excited about a new day at UNLV football.
This is the job that I've wanted from day one.
I have great respect for Coach Robinson and for what he brought here to UNLV and I honor him for that. I am excited about what we are going to do from here forward. I have extremely high expectations as I've said already, and I can't wait to get going.
This is going to be a football program and a football team that the city of Las Vegas and those of you who are great Rebel football fans will be proud of."
