The recent theft of gear from the Nevada softball team’s locker room — $15,000 to $20,000 worth of stuff was taken — has prompted Nevada football’s JoJuan Claiborne to stump for facility improvements for the Wolf Pack’s non-revenue sports.
Claiborne issued a couple of tweets in recent days — including this one and this one — bemoaning the below-average facilities and support some Wolf Pack programs face. That includes the modified shipping container that serves as the softball team’s locker room, which didn’t have a working lock when it was entered last week before the equipment was stolen.
Claiborne, who entered the transfer portal in January before returning to the Wolf Pack for his final season of eligibility, told Nevada Sports Net on Saturday he has raised these issues because he loves Nevada and wants the conditions to improve.
“I just want to make sure that we as a community at Nevada can keep pushing forward because I love Nevada,” Claiborne told NSN’s Shannon Kelly. “I played football in Las Vegas. I came down here because I love Nevada. I wanted to stay in Nevada and make sure that I can also bring this university to a higher level. I just feel like it’s not fair to have players and staff that put in just the same amount of hours as a football team (and have those conditions) because even us (in football), sometimes you need to be thankful for what we have. Learning about other sports and knowing that they don’t have as much as we do and sometimes we kind of take that for granted. Learning cross country doesn’t always have food after their workouts and stuff like that. You kind of take a step back and say, ‘OK, now I want to help someone else.'”
Claiborne said he felt badly when he heard of the softball theft and the fact the program doesn’t have a permanent locker room.
“Finding out that they’re in a shed as their locker room, I feel like that’s unacceptable,” Claiborne said. “Finding out about different things on campus, like the soccer players don’t have clean water to shower in, that’s horrible because they’re doing so much for the university that I just feel like it’s only right that they have the best stuff for them, not only to be safe but also to be the best that we can be and win championships.”
Claiborne said he couldn’t imagine if the Wolf Pack football team’s locker room, which is far more secure, would have been broken into.
“It would be horrible,” Claiborne said. “Those girls are really strong to go out there and continue their games and compete no matter what happened. And that’s the ‘Nevada Grit’ way, so they’re really strong for that.”
Nevada is in the middle of a major capital campaign that is largely focused on improving locker rooms for most sports on campus. The Wolf Pack announced in February it has obtained $8 million in donations for men’s and women’s basketball lockers rooms and players lounges. Wolf Pack athletic director Doug Knuth also told NSN and the RGJ in December that Nevada football is getting $5 million in improvements, including $3 million for a renovated and expanded locker room.
Both of those projects are funding the Wolf Pack’s revenue sports, both of which already had on-campus locker room space. Nevada has hinted at further facility improvement announcements this spring but has not publicly made any yet. NSN looked at some of the projects it has learned about in this piece in February. Nevada athletics also started the Alpha Fund, a nutrition program for its female athletes, last March, which was the brainchild of UNR president Brian Sandoval. Wolf Pack fans who want to specifically donate to individual programs can do so via this link.
You can watch Shannon Kelly’s conversation with JoJuan Claiborne below and a full discussion on Nevada’s facility issue in a recent NSN Daily segment below that.
