Tuesday, April 21, 1998 | 8:32 a.m.
Al McGuire's not ashamed to admit it. He has always been a fan of UNLV basketball.
The Hall of Fame coach who grew up in New York City has a little bit of Rebel in him as well. He was never one of those "Park Avenue Guys" as he likes to refer to the upper crust. He was a battler, a scrapper, always having something to prove.
While UNLV has been to the top of college basketball's mountain and is attempting to ascend the summit again, this time under Bill Bayno, McGuire can appreciate the struggle.
Back in 1977, UNLV under Jerry Tarkanian and McGuire's Marquette team made it to the Final Four in Atlanta. The Rebels lost a heartbreaker to North Carolina in the semifinals. But two nights later, McGuire's squad upended the Tar Heels for the national championship, and a teary-eyed McGuire walked off into the sunset.
He re-emerged in the bright lights of television as a sharp-witted college basketball analyst, first with NBC, the last seven years with CBS.
"I had an understanding of what Tark's guys were taking on," McGuire said. "They were taking on the establishment. They were mavericks like us. I could relate to that."
The 69-year-old McGuire has a million stories to tell, although his appearance at Thursday's UNLV basketball awards banquet at the Las Vegas Hilton ballroom will only permit him to reel off a few hundred. But with his rapid-fire delivery, you never know how many anecdotes he can drop.
Tickets for the annual event are $75 per person and $125 per couple. Corporate sponsor tables are also available at $1,200 each. (To reserve a spot, call 895-3295.)
"It won't be dry," McGuire said. "I'm not going to go up and do any preaching or anything like that. I'm going to talk about the kids, talk about the game. Keep it light. "
Keeping things light is McGuire's forte. He was a big hit last summer as an instructor at Michael Jordan's fantasy basketball camp at Bally's and he'll be back Labor Day weekend for the camp's second go-round.
Longtime UNLV fans will remember his appearance here to work the exhibition game between UNLV and the Soviet National Team, holding court in a bar Tarkanian was a partner in, swapping stories, signing autographs and just having a good time.
And there was the time in 1989 when he came to Las Vegas to talk to Larry Johnson. He fell off the interview platform and ruptured his Achilles tendon.
"I remember the doctor there (Dr. Gerald Higgins) was going to fix me up and I said, 'Doc, if it's all the same, I'd like to wait until I get back to Milwaukee,'" McGuire said. "One of my former players was a doctor and just as they're putting me under, I said to him, 'Now remember, it's the right leg.'"
McGuire has always been a Vegas guy. And he gets good vibes about the current UNLV coach.
"I met Billy Bayno a few years ago when we came up to UMass to talk to Coach Cal (John Calipari)," McGuire said. "We're waiting for Cal and he couldn't make it. But I'm looking over at this kid and I said, 'Here's a keeper. If he can only get an opportunity.'
"Two years later, he's with you guys (in Las Vegas)."
McGuire said Bayno's enthusiasm and respect for the game and the people in it will make him successful.
"He seems to know how to have respect without it being a wet palm," McGuire said, using one of his many catch-phrases. "He's part of the operation, but he doesn't step over the line. To me, that's a major, major asset."
McGuire, who just finished his 23rd year on TV, said the recently concluded season will always be special. Not just because he returned to the Final Four in a working capacity for the first time in years, but because one of his Marquette proteges, Utah's Rick Majerus, had a team in the championship game.
"A lot of people always ask me about Rick," McGuire said. "He might have the sharpest mind in the world. He'll pick the brains of all the top coaches and then he'll use their best.
"But my true name for him is 'Bungalow.' Not because of his size, but because he stays true to his neighborhood. He never forgot where he came from."
McGuire said his contributions to Majerus' success are overrated.
"The only thing I ever did for Rick was give him my dessert," he said.
But McGuire's accomplishments are not overrated. In 13 seasons at Marquette, his teams went 295-80. The Warriors went to postseason play 11 times, including an appearance at the 1974 NCAA title game and of course, the 1977 championship.
But McGuire concedes that had he played Tark's Hardway Eight in the Omni that March night in 1977 instead of North Carolina, he might never have gotten the ring.
"I think you guys (UNLV) win the game," he said. "You had more athletic ability than we did. If they get out of the gate quickly, we'd be in trouble and if it comes down to a blacktop game, UNLV wins."
archive
