Curtis sees Rebels as team on the rise

Steve Guiremand

Tuesday, Aug. 10, 1999 | 9:51 a.m.

New UNLV tight end Jermaine Curtis doesn't believe in the adage "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Instead, the credo for the 6-3, 230-pound junior college All-American from Mississippi Gulf Coast JC is more along the lines of "If it's broke, help fix it."

How else can you explain that Curtis turned down a chance to reunite with his old prep teammate, Tee Martin, at defending national champion Tennessee to play for a UNLV team that has lost 16 straight games over the past two seasons?

"It was very hard, but I think I have more to offer to UNLV than I had to offer to Tennessee," the soft-spoken Curtis said. "Tennessee is on top of the hill right now. The only place they can go is downhill. UNLV has a lot of uphill to go."

And first-year UNLV coach John Robinson is counting on Curtis to play a very key role in the Rebels' turnaround.

Curtis, who set a Mississippi Gulf Coast career touchdown record with 21 and had 35 receptions for 765 yards and five touchdowns last season, is already penciled in to be UNLV's starting H-Back. Robinson has made comparisons of Curtis to Denver Broncos' star Shannon Sharpe.

"I think he's perfectly suited for the role we have for him," Robinson said. "He's got a chance to really be a major contributor, to be one of the players with a future. He kind of fits into that Shannon Sharpe mold."

Robinson pauses and then smiles.

"That's what I fantasize about anyway," he says.

Considering Curtis' enormous athletic ability, it's easy to see why.

A three-time Alabama state champion in the long jump and high jump at Williamson High School in Mobile, Curtis has been electronically timed at 10.52 for 100 meters, high-jumped 7 feet and long-jumped more than 24 feet. His vertical jump was measured at 33 inches when he checked in for his UNLV physical.

Not bad for someone weighing 230 pounds.

In fact, Curtis was just as heavily recruited in track as in football coming out of high school when schools such as Tennessee and Auburn came knocking. But he failed to garner the necessary test score in the ACT to meet NCAA freshman eligibility requirements and instead attended junior college.

The Vols and old prep teammate Martin recruited Curtis again last winter, but he canceled his trip to Knoxville after visiting UNLV.

"I was supposed to visit there, but I had already made up my mind to go to UNLV," Curtis said. "It was hard because Tee and I have been friends since the sixth grade. In fact, I gave him a call (Sunday) night and talked to him for a while. And I saw him a couple of times when I went home. But he understood."

Robinson admits he was sweating a little near letter-of-intent day when Tennessee entered the picture.

"Yeah, I was," he said with a smile. "But I think they were looking for more of a traditional blocking tight end instead of an H-Back. I think (Curtis) felt we were going to use his skills and he'd fit better into our style of offense than had he gone to Tennessee."

"I really wanted to play for Coach Robinson because he has a lot of experience at both (college and professional) levels," Curtis said. "I think we can really turn this program around. There's a lot of work that needs to be done, but I like working hard."

* RAY ARRIVES: Freshman quarterback recruit Matt Ray missed Monday morning's first newcomer practice but he had a valid excuse.

Ray had played in an high school all-star football game late Saturday night in northern California near the Oregon border and didn't fly into Las Vegas until Sunday night, too late to get his mandatory physical.

The 6-2, 185-pounder from Quincy, Calif., is expected to battle another true freshman, Ryan Hanson of Los Alamitos, Calif., High School, for the No. 3 spot on the depth chart behind starter Jason Vaughan and backup Chris Hayward.

"I'm ready to go," Ray said. "The good thing about playing in the all-star game is I got two weeks of practice in before coming here. That got all the rust off and there was a lot of rust to get off. I'm going out there with the attitude that I'm going to try and start and if that doesn't work out, I'll redshirt and get five years of schooling in."

Ray, a nephew of coaching great Bill Walsh, said he didn't talk with his uncle during the summer about the transition to college but did get a nice graduation gift.

"He sent me a bunch of adidas apparel which was really nice," he said.