Athletic director Patrick Nero wants every team at GW to be a winning team.

As trite as that might sound, he’s putting in place the infrastructure to make it happen.

With the slew of conference realignments occurring across collegiate athletics, there is a great deal of uncertainty surrounding the future of all of the NCAA’s leagues. The shake-up begins at the Big East, but the ripple effect could easily spread to GW and other members of the A-10.

Right now it would be easy for Nero to be distracted by how this conference realignment will shake out or where GW will be placed in the future. But instead, he is taking the reigns on what he can control: ensuring GW has all the tools to excel and succeed regardless of its opponents or conference.

To achieve this goal, Nero has been working to improve GW athletics from the bottom up, taking a holistic approach to the department.

Training, nutrition and conditioning are gaining importance under Nero. He’s named Ben Kenyon the first-ever assistant athletic director for strength and conditioning, and brought on Kelley Vargo to teach student-athletes about the importance of proper nutrition.

These seemingly small steps are what will ultimately raise the level of performance of all athletics teams.

Nero deserves credit for not ignoring what gives his teams the tools for success, at a time when many big name athletic programs are focusing on the money and publicity involved with the department.