RENO, Nevada — Steve Alford’s office at Nevada is considerably smaller than the one he had at UCLA, so he has to be discerning when it comes to decorating it. Alford is only 54, but he is about to begin his 29th season as a college head coach at his sixth school. That’s a lot of memories to choose from. “I wanted to be sure each of my stops was represented,” Alford says as he settles into a leather chair beside his desk. “I’m so freaking old now. It’s like, golly, where did it go?”



After alighting in Reno in April, four months after was fired at UCLA mid-season, Alford was thrown into the whirlwind of relocating his family, assembling a staff and retooling an already depleted roster. He had much bigger concerns than deciding which pictures to hang, but when he started hosting recruiting visits, he realized they knew very little about him.



So Alford and his wife, Tanya, dug through the many boxes of memorabilia they...