Where I Stand: Rebels learn some of life’s lessons on basketball court

Monday, Nov. 25, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

NOTHING COMES EASY. But, something, now that's a lot harder to achieve.

If there has been one of life's enduring messages it is that good things are worth the effort it takes to get them, and those who are willing to settle for less usually get it.

I thought of my father's continuing admonition to me that if it were easy, everyone would do it as I watched Coach Bill Bayno's 1996 Rebel basketball team struggle to a two-point victory over Cal State Northridge, a team that at another time would never have been on the same court as the Runnin' Rebels. But Saturday night they were not only on the same court as the Rebels, they practically owned it for 40 minutes of basketball.

I am not writing this column as a critique of Coach Bayno's first real effort at flooring a competitive ballclub. There will be plenty of Monday morning quarterbacking, or is it point guarding, by those who claim to know what they are talking about. My purpose is to share a thought or two about the people who attended Saturday night's game and the expectations they have for UNLV on its road to regain national basketball prominence.

I don't know if I am a typical UNLV basketball fan. When things were going well, I was there yelling and cheering with the best of them. As life at UNLV turned sour, so did my attitude about the game although I was still seen among a handful of diehard fans cheering for something -- maybe it was just the spirit of a group of young athletes fighting impossible odds on and off the court. But as the seasons dragged on, so too did the effort it took to get up for another game at the Thomas & Mack.

Disillusionment among the fans ran rampant and, regrettably, I was not immune. But, we always held out hope that, just as UNLV finally seemed to have gotten its academic act back on track, so too would it fix what ailed its one-time national championship-caliber basketball program. After all, Runnin' Rebel basketball was far more than a sport in Las Vegas. It was a social event in which the community had an excuse to come together for no more of an agenda than fun and an occasional emotional high.

And for the first time in too many years, I recognized that high spirit in the 13,000-plus people who gathered at the Thomas & Mack last weekend to see the team that Bayno is building.

Most importantly, there was no sign of the old bitter days when the town's attitude toward UNLV split down the middle with the young athletes pulled on either side of an unwinnable argument. What was clearly visible was the number of people from both sides who returned to their seats in anticipation of the glory days we once had and, with a great deal of work, will have again.

For, you see, Rebel basketball was never just about playing and winning games or even a national championship -- although that banner flying high above the T&M still evokes a strong sense of community pride.

What those games and those kids represented to Las Vegans and still represent today is a belief that what we do here is good and what we produce at our university and our other community institutions is just as right and proper as that which other cities across this country achieve. Maybe even better because we have been at it for such a short period of time.

So as we watched a potential superstar get hurt and the rest of his teammates suck it up to hold on to a messy and not very pretty victory, we could harken back to some of the old days when prior Rebel teams got into similar trouble. Maybe then we had more talent or more time together as a team to help assure a win when the odds swung against us. But win we did, just as Coach Bayno's boys did Saturday night.

Will they learn from their close call with defeat? Bet on it.

Will they better appreciate what their coach is trying to tell them about working together as a team? They'd better, because that's the only way they'll win again.

And will they understand as young people learning to live in an increasingly competitive society that doing just enough to get by is no longer good enough? I hope so, because there is no better lesson they can learn.

It's the same lesson my father taught me and his taught him. And it is the same thing that Coach Bill Bayno needs to teach the young men who have come to him to learn. And it is the same lesson Las Vegans have learned at one time or another inside the Thomas & Mack.

Winning is about effort and about just being in the game. Las Vegans were winners Saturday night because they showed up to start a new era of UNLV basketball. And those young college athletes who competed for UNLV were winners because they didn't collapse when it would have been easy to have done so.

Whether we continue our winning ways remains to be seen. That'll be up to the coach and his players. But if it will help -- and it always does -- there'll be thousands of Las Vegans from now on who will show up each night just to get a chance to see it happen.

Good luck, UNLV. Go Rebels.