Columnist Dean Juipe: Huge raise puts Collins, A.D. on spot

Dean Juipe

Tuesday, Feb. 10, 1998 | 11:48 a.m.

AS IF THE UNLV athletic department wasn't already immersed in tension this week with its two most prominent athletes placed on suspension, there's a little extra turmoil bubbling just beneath the surface.

Be it jealousy, envy or a practical and logical reaction, a coach at the university says many on the collective staff are furious with a decision made by athletic director Charlie Cavagnaro.

Quietly and without the press-release approach that accompanied the suspensions of basketball star Keon Clark and football star Jon Denton, last week UNLV matched a contract offer that had been extended by the University of Iowa to volleyball coach Deitre Collins.

By choice, Collins and Cavagnaro are keeping the dollar specifics to themselves at this time. But a well-placed source says her yearly salary has increased from something around $40,000 to something around $70,000.

Just like that, Collins has gone from the bottom of the UNLV totem pole to a position much nearer the top. And those she leapfrogged aren't particularly thrilled, even if Collins said "everyone I've talked to says they're happy for me."

Likewise, Cavagnaro says he's oblivious to the complaint.

"It hasn't been brought up to me," he said. "I feel comfortable with what we did."

What he did was keep Collins at a hefty pay increase in spite of the fact UNLV won only two WAC matches last season after going 3-14 in the league during the program's debut year, 1996.

"It's not the first time she's had the opportunity to leave, and, in the final analysis, she's being rewarded not only for the job she's done but for the expectation that the program will move forward," Cavagnaro said. "The program is only two years old and I think we're ahead of schedule.

"Deitre brings a big-time presence to UNLV volleyball. To lose her now would clearly be a step backward for us."

Collins, a tremendous collegiate player in the early 1980s at Hawaii and later with the U.S. National team, certainly can't be faulted in this scenario. She was offered a job with a Big Ten team that included a substantial raise and benefits, and if she really wanted to leave UNLV she would have done it.

Iowa, after all, has one of the top women's programs in the country.

"I wasn't looking to leave but I interviewed for the Iowa job and they made me an incredible offer," she said. "I came back to UNLV and they matched it and threw in some other things."

Those "other things" are budgetary assurances and the promise of playing additional matches in the Thomas & Mack Center, rather than the Lied Gymnasium.

UNLV's revised package left Collins feeling good about herself and her program's direction and future, although she was obviously a little hurt to hear that at least some of her coaching colleagues were taken aback by her good fortune.

"It's a tough thing," she said. "I got a nice pay raise, but I have to ask: Doesn't everybody want more?"

Yes, they do. And after seeing Collins capitalize, some on the UNLV staff are wishing an even bigger school would offer them a ritzy contract too.