Fresno a no-show at box office

Steve Guiremand

Wednesday, Dec. 15, 1999 | 10:06 a.m.

Remember all that talk about Fresno State's "Red Wave" filling up a lot of seats and hotel rooms this week?

Well, turns out that's all it was -- talk.

The vaunted Red Wave has turned into ankle slappers.

As of Tuesday, the Bulldogs had sold only about 6,000 of their required 12,500 seats for Saturday's game.

"We didn't expect it to be this slow," Richard Enns, operations manager for Fresno State's athletic business office, said. "We'll have to review things in the future -- who we play and what to expect out of it."

Utah is doing a little better, closing in on the 10,000 mark. But Las Vegas Bowl spokesman Michael Mack admitted on Tuesday that only about 17,000 of the 27,000 tickets sold so far "are accounted for." In other words, 10,000 of the seats bought by the schools under their bowl agreement have yet to be re-sold by the schools.

So, barring a late rally, 36,000-seat Sam Boyd Stadium could be only about half-full on Saturday.

If so, the Las Vegas Bowl selection committee has only itself to blame. Seems the folks in Fresno aren't exactly fired up about the prospect of facing a team such as Utah when it could have been a national marquee team like BYU.

"No one around here cares about Utah," longtime Bulldog season ticket-holder Tom Lucas told the Fresno Bee this week. "Had it been BYU, they'd probably sell it out, and I would have found a way to get there."

Added Mike Costa, another Fresno State season ticket-holder who decided to stay home: "I don't want to see Utah. To me, this is like playing a league game. Basically, we're playing a WAC team. Somebody different and I would probably find the money.

"Vegas is a great place to have it, but to spend that kind of money -- and you're going to spend it there -- I'd sure like to see a different type of opponent."