Sports Brief: Athletics - Nevada inducts group into Hall of Fame
Former Nevada stars Andy Dominique, James Cannida, Tiffany Neumeier Breeden, former baseball and football coach Bill Ireland and the 1956 national championship rifle team will be inducted into the University of Nevada Athletics Hall of Fame in October.
Dominique, a current assistant hitting coach for the Wolf Pack softball team, played for the Nevada baseball team from 1994-97. One of the most decorated players in Wolf Pack history, Dominique still appears in nearly every single-season and career list in the Nevada recordbooks. As a senior, Dominique earned All-American honors and was named the Most Valuable Player of the Big West Conference. He played most of his professional career in the minor leagues but broke into the majors in 2004 as a first baseman and catcher for the World Champion Boston Red Sox.
Cannida played for the Nevada football team from 1994-97 and was a two-time Big West Conference honoree as a defensive lineman. He started all but four games and missed only one contest in his four-year career. He was drafted in the sixth round of the 1998 National Football League draft by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers where he went on to play five seasons before playing one season with the Indianapolis Colts.
Breeden played for the Nevada volleyball team from 1994-97 and is the Wolf Pack’s career leader with 1,779 kills. She ranks third in school history with 1,243 career digs and holds three of the top-10 single-season marks for kills and attacks. Breeden also ranks in the top-15 for single-game kills, attacks and digs.
Ireland, a 1952 graduate of the University of Nevada, Reno, was the Wolf Pack’s head baseball coach from 1961-67. After his time at Nevada, Ireland went on to the University of Nevada, Las Vegas where became the school’s first football coach. He went on to become UNLV’s athletics director from 1973-80 and is credited with making the Fremont Cannon the symbol of the UNR-UNLV rivalry. Ireland was inducted into the UNLV Athletics Hall of Fame in 1987 and passed away in September of 2007.
The 1956 Nevada rifle team, coached by Sgt. Joel Cantrell, won the first national championship in Wolf Pack history and is set to become only the second team inducted into the Nevada Athletics Hall of Fame. Nevada netted the National Intercollegiate Rifle Championship in March, setting a national record with 1,443 points out of a possible 1,500.
The group will be inducted into Nevada’s Hall of Fame on Friday, Oct. 17 at a dinner in the Silver Baron Room at the Silver Legacy Hotel and Casino in Reno. They will also be honored at halftime of the Homecoming/ Hall of Fame game against Utah State on Saturday, Oct. 18 at Mackay Stadium.
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