Wednesday, April 8, 1998 | 11:07 a.m.
Regina Miller must have known the comparison would be made sooner or later, it just came sooner than she had anticipated.
Less than 20 minutes after being introduced as the new head coach of the UNLV women's basketball program, Miller was asked about her 60-100 career record as the head coach at Western Illinois University. Her record is eerily similar to that of former Lady Rebels head coach LaDonna McClain, who came to UNLV with a 60-103 career mark and lasted less than two seasons.
"That's a fair question," Miller said. "But I think it's important to put it in perspective. I've always tried for a very challenging schedule -- we've always played Big Ten and top-20 schools at Western Illinois.
"I think my overall record could be 100-60 if I had gone out and scheduled lower Division I schools, but it was not going to give us any national exposure."
National exposure is what Miller said she plans to return to the Lady Rebels basketball program, which has suffered through four straight losing seasons and has won only four games in each of the past three seasons.
UNLV athletic director Charles Cavagnaro said he believes Miller is the right person to return the program to national prominence and attempted to diffuse any comparisons between Miller and McClain.
"What Regina brings to the table is that she has played and she has coached at the highest level of women's basketball," Cavagnaro said. "Even beyond that, the Olympic committee doesn't pick people to coach just because they're nice -- they pick them because they have skills and knowledge of the game.
"Everyone I talked to -- up to and including the president of the university -- said that she just didn't have the tools there to do her job and it's just as clear as the nose on your face."
Miller was tabbed by USA Basketball last summer to serve as an assistant coach for the USA National Team at the 1997 World Championships Qualifier in Sao Palo, Brazil. The U.S. team captured the silver medal and earned a berth in the World Championship Tournament next month.
Miller, who signed a three-year contract for $85,000 a year, turned Western Illinois into a NCAA Tournament team in just her third season in Macomb, Ill. After posting a 3-21 record in her first season at WIU, the Westerwinds went 15-13 in 1993-94 and 17-11 the following season, winning the Mid-Continent Conference regular-season and conference tournament titles and qualifying for the NCAA Tournament.
WIU lost all five of its starters following the 1994-95 season and, faced with another rebuilding project, Miller's teams posted 10-17, 7-20 and 8-18 records the past three seasons.
Miller said that because of the resources available at the university and in the community, she believes she can rebuild the once-proud Lady Rebels program.
"It's ... a fairly easy task to get it done -- I feel very confident that way," Miller said. "It's a challenge and it's going to take a lot of hard work but I'm committed to make that happen."
Miller said there are some parallels between her situation at UNLV and when she took over at WIU.
"This is a situation where there are a lot of seniors (seven) in the program and my goal is to help the seniors here have the very best year that they can have," Miller said. "With the graduation of so many players (next year), it opens up the opportunity to bring in a big recruiting class and that was the same thing that happened to me at Western Illinois."
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