Columnist Dean Juipe: Sorry field hurts UNLV recruiting

Dean Juipe

Wednesday, April 14, 1999 | 10:05 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or 259-4084.

It's obvious what the problem is.

For seven consecutive years, 1990 through 1996, UNLV's softball teams won 285 games, lost only 139 and qualified for the NCAA tournament each season.

The Lady Rebels' typical record during those years was 40-19. But in 1997 they slipped to 26-28 and last year they were 21-30. This season, heading into a doubleheader today with Long Beach State at UNLV's on-campus field, they're 13-23 and standing eighth in the nine-team Western Athletic Conference.

They're slipping and the reason is readily apparent: They badly need a financial benefactor to step forward and provide the money for the new field/stadium that was first promised to coach Shan McDonald eight years ago.

That's a long time to be stuck in a holding pattern, and, in the interim, many of UNLV's competitors have gone on a building frenzy. The sad fact is that the team's current playing facility is inadequate and it places McDonald and the university at a recruiting disadvantage.

"It is a factor and it's going to be a bigger and bigger factor as time goes on," McDonald said Tuesday. "We recruit high school kids who come from better facilities than what we have here."

Rebel Diamond is quaint yet aesthetically challenged, sitting as it does square in the middle of campus. It's marginally inaccessible, has no locker room or concession stand, no lights and only three small five-row bleachers.

"Sometimes we rush our recruits right past the field," McDonald said.

This is her 13th year at UNLV and there was a time when she could land the type of players that could win 40-plus games a season and make the NCAA tourney. No disrespect to her current players, but they're just not following in their predecessors' footsteps.

"We haven't gotten the blue chippers the last few years," McDonald said. "We're getting visits from them, but they're not choosing us and I expect the facility is a big part of that.

"They come to campus and see nice facilities for baseball and basketball, then they see what we have here and they ask themselves 'Is the athletic department being supportive of this program?' "

You can guess the answer to that one. McDonald has been told a new softball field is a top priority at the school, yet groundbreaking is delayed year after year.

It will take $2 million to build the right stadium and that money will have to be privately raised. McDonald said she had commitments for $700,000 of the tab right now, so someone with some money needs to emerge for the dream to materialize.

"When I first came here (in 1987) they said this was only a temporary facility," McDonald said of Rebel Diamond. "It's very frustrating to still be here. Times have changed and other schools are leaving us in the dust."

None of the five pitchers she was recruiting last summer selected UNLV.

"We're not getting the top-level players anymore and we're not getting the mid-level ones either," she said. "We're not winning and it's because our pitching's not good enough, and any of the five kids we wanted would have lifted us to another level."

She says she remains "cautiously optimistic" additional donors can be found. Yet she also says "I'll believe it when I see the checks come in."

She, and her players, and her future players, deserve better.