Since becoming the UNLV women's track and field coach in 2007, two-time Olympian Yvonne Wade has made steady progress in transforming the Rebels into winners on and off the track.
Wade has guided UNLV to academic All-American honors (team GPA of 3.0 or higher) in five of the last six years, and the Rebels produced U.S. Olympic hammer thrower Amanda Bingson, a Silverado High School product, on her watch.
"It took a while to change the culture and recruit the type of student-athletes we needed to change the overall program," said Wade, an NCAA All-American at the University of Colorado who competed in the 100-meter hurdles at the Summer Olympics in 1996 in Atlanta and in 2000 in Sydney.