Columnist: Busy times for UNLV’s new coach

Friday, July 19, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

SHE'S IN ATLANTA in a working capacity for the Olympic Games, yet Deitre Collins' thoughts never stray too far from Las Vegas. The new UNLV volleyball coach still works the phones, hustling not only late-summer recruits for her first-year team but recruits for what figures to be an even better team in 1997.

Thursday, for example, Collins ran her sales pitch past a high-school senior to be while balancing media requests as well as demands from TV producers and knocks on her hotel-room door. The hectic schedule was only a precursor for what lies ahead once she returns to UNLV, where volleyball practice opens Aug. 9 and the season begins three weeks later.

"There are going to be some long days here," she said of her role with the Olympic Broadcasting Network, which will require her to serve as a spotter for every match played (which varies from four to six per day). "There's no relief. I have to do every game because the Olympic Network makes coverage available to every country in the world.

"But maybe I'll come out of this a better coach."

Collins, 33 and a broadcasting major (as well as a volleyball All-American) while at the University of Hawaii, has no collegiate head-coaching experience. Her first team will be comprised of one sophomore transfer, one possible junior-college transfer and up to 11 freshmen. UNLV still has room on the roster if a walk-on or two impresses during preseason practice.

Surprisingly, all the incoming recruited freshmen are already in town and working out regularly, albeit without their head coach for the next couple of weeks.

Collins has had to make some hard decisions in the year she has had to lay the groundwork for the program and get it up and running. She had six scholarships to work with and elected to keep them intact, as opposed to splitting them into partials. She has also had to get by without a lot of money.

"I felt I had to keep the scholarships full if I wanted quality kids, because that's what the other big schools are offering," she said, adding that five of the six incoming scholarship players are from out of state.

Money was a factor in recruiting, in determining where to play and in dozens of other miniscule decisions confronting a coach attempting to resurrect a program that had been dropped at UNLV in 1985.

"I didn't always have enough money," she said. "But our 1997 budget will be a lot better. It's workable and I'm happy. Dollar-wise, we'll be about in the middle of the conference."

The Rebels will play their home games in the South Gym, as Collins felt the expense of having to play in the Thomas & Mack Center was prohibitive.

"It costs too much," she said of the T&M. "There really wasn't any reason to play there. The trouble is, your program doesn't get the revenue from the ticket sales."

Even if her program is strapped for cash, Collins said she'll make the best of it.

"I want to be the best," she said. "I'll work for it. If that means doing more and having all kinds of fund-raisers, I'll do it."