Columnist Dean Juipe: Team hits beach, Rod hits bench

Dean Juipe

Wednesday, March 31, 1999 | 9:26 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.

Rod Soesbe had all his Hawaiian shirts laid out. Pretty ones. Bright. Colorful. Floral patterns.

He had the whole array, packed in a suitcase and ready for the islands.

Visions of a tropical paradise likely danced in his head. And then a couple of loud, overbearing, seldom-used pitchers on his UNLV baseball team raised a commotion at 3:30 in the morning outside Soesbe's hotel door in lovely College Station, Texas, one night last week.

Boom, the coach leapt out of bed and shot out of his quarters to confront the rabble-rousers.

Had the players been drinking? The two -- said to be fellow left-handers Mike Lopez and Billy Barker -- were old enough at 21 and 22, respectively, to get a drink if they were so inclined. Yet Soesbe has a no-drinking policy on his team, even if he had relaxed his usual curfew as the Rebels were in the midst of three days off deep in the heart of Texas.

There's no evidence or even allegations that the players had tied one on, but Soesbe wanted to see for himself. The guys were making so much noise, it was worth investigating. So Soesbe got in Lopez's face for a closer look. He also grabbed him by the collar.

A few days later, Soesbe is suspended by UNLV for a week and his baseball team has gone off to Hawaii without him. The Rebels, in Hawaii for the first time since 1997 and perhaps for the last time as they depart the Western Athletic Conference this summer, are playing four games there and won't be home until Sunday.

If ever the punishment didn't fit the crime, this seems to be it.

Details on the Soesbe-Lopez confrontation are sketchy, but what is known is that the player took his complaint to UNLV's athletic department front office. And because it's a school policy that a coach cannot physically touch an athlete in any undue way, Soesbe was slapped with a most inopportune suspension.

He misses the one week of the season that qualifies as a legitimate, worthwhile travelogue.

He gets sent home to brood while his players eye the islands' many spectacular sights.

He's benched, they're beached.

Soesbe is 52 years old and he probably doesn't really care about seeing Hawaii again. And maybe there's no excusing his conduct, particularly if he did more than just tug on Lopez's collar.

But if Lopez hadn't been out there precipitating the late-night exchange, Soesbe would be neither publicly embarrassed nor serving a week's suspension. Something about this just doesn't seem right.

Granted, these aren't the old days where a coach could physically abuse a player at his own discretion. And that's fine, the world did need to change. Brutality and intimidation are out of place in this era of political correctness.

But unless Soesbe -- a strong, almost burly man who undoubtedly could more than hold his own against almost any comer -- really roughed up Lopez, the penalty of an imposed week away from his struggling team comes across as too extreme.

The school may have overreacted. It may have been a little too diligent.

One thing about it, Lopez has to figure his days of actually appearing in a game as a Rebel have just about come to an end, even if Soesbe isn't much for holding a grudge.

Think the kid will send the coach a postcard?