Columnist Dean Juipe: Steady coach helps Rebels in title quest

Dean Juipe

Monday, May 11, 1998 | 8:43 a.m.

THE PHONE rang and Debbie Knight was right there to pick it up.

Oh yes, she said, her husband Dwaine was home. He was spending a beautiful Mother's Day in the backyard, gardening.

It seemed significant. Here was the UNLV golf coach dirtying his green thumb at a time when many in his position might prefer a self-imposed exile, perhaps behind closed doors amid statistics, film, contingency plans and half-chewed fingernails.

Knight coaches the top-ranked golf team in America and a team that enters regional competition this week carrying the weight of its predecessors' baggage. The Rebels have been No. 1 before, except they've never finished No. 1.

Those earlier disappointments could bother Knight and it could bother his team, but he says it doesn't and it won't.

"We've chosen to talk about it," he said of the NCAA Tournament failures of the two previous UNLV golf teams in particular. Last year the Rebels became the first team ever ranked No. 1 to miss the 36-hole cut in the national final. Two years ago an equally talented UNLV team was overtaken by Arizona State and lost by a neck -- three strokes -- at the wire.

"It's like wondering if there's an elephant in the corner," Knight said. "Our approach is to admit that it's there and deal with it. People ask if we're scared, but we're not because with any great reward there's great risk.

"We're not nervous and we're not worried. We're playing at the very highest level right now and the only thing left to do is win the national championship."

In terms of timing, a national title would do wonders for a besieged UNLV athletic department. It would also solidify a growing belief that the Rebels may have the most attractive program in the country and that the levelheaded Knight, who came here in 1988, might well be the nation's leading collegiate coach.

"I don't know when but I do know we're going to win the national championship at some point," he said. "That means there's pressure, but we welcome it."

This week the Rebels are in Tempe for the West Regional, where they need to finish only in the top nine (of 19 teams) to advance to the NCAA Tournament in Albuquerque. It's the second leg of that journey that stands as the real test.

"Gosh, the last three years we've played ourselves into a position where we could win it," Knight said, marveling not only at the consistency but at the unexpected success of his current team, which has six victories and three seconds despite being rebuilt with only one returning starter. "The last two years we went into the season with what I thought were the best teams in the country and those were two of the best teams I ever coached. But this year I didn't know what to expect and that makes it all the more remarkable to have had the kind of success we've had.

"No team has played as well as we have all year."

The coach/horticulturist is obviously pleased and obviously relaxed. He's not much for excuses or manure.

All-consumed? Nah, Knight's too earthbound for that. He has a garden-variety contentedness that goes a long way toward continually producing these bumper crops.