Chris Ault’s retirement: A Wolf Pack legend

Nevada's sports landscape won't be the same without Chris Ault. Plenty of Southern Nevadans no doubt will see that as a good thing. Mr. Ault, the longtime University of Nevada, Reno football coach, resigned Friday, ending his third stint as leader of the Wolf Pack. Mr. Ault, 66, is most responsible for elevating the profile of UNR athletics, as well as exposing the inadequacies of UNLV's long-sputtering football program.

Mr. Ault had the rarest of traits in the college football coaching ranks: unfailing loyalty. He played quarterback at the school from 1965 to 1967. In 1976, after three years as an assistant coach at UNLV, he became UNR's head coach at age 29. Mr. Ault took a pair of breaks from the team totaling nine years, during which time he was UNR's athletics director. For eight years, he wore both hats.

Despite his induction into the College Football Hall of Fame, Mr. Ault never joined the ever-spinning coaching carousel. And he accepted a below-market salary to preserve resources for Wolf Pack teams - the $535,000 he was scheduled to earn in 2015 is half the average Mountain West Conference head coaching salary, and a quarter of what a typical major program pays.

The creator of the widely copied pistol offense won 233 games at UNR, the most by any coach ever at his alma mater - more than legend Paul "Bear" Bryant at Alabama.

Mr. Ault has left coaching twice before, only to return to the sidelines. Might he return to coaching one day? Mr. Ault specifically declared last week that he wasn't retiring. "I have a lot left in me," he told the Reno Gazette-Journal. "I'm in my offensive prime. I feel good about where I'm at. My energy level is still very high. ... I'm not going fishing."

Many people among UNR's statewide alumni base had soured on Mr. Ault, especially after the Wolf Pack's late-season slide and bowl-game collapse against the University of Arizona. Wolf Pack faithful are about to find out just how valuable Mr. Ault was to their team, their school and their state. Considering the pleasure Mr. Ault took in thrashing UNLV, he won't be missed in Las Vegas.