Columnist Ron Kantowski: UNLV-BYU game could break attendance mark

Thursday, Oct. 7, 1999 | 2:29 a.m.

Ron Kantowski's notes column appears Tuesday and Thursday. Reach him at ron@vegas.com or 259-4088.

It's hard to tell if the upcoming UNLV-Brigham Young football game will set the all-time Sam Boyd Stadium attendance record, for a number of reasons.

Foremost among them: If you use the UNLV football media guide as a guide, it's unclear what the stadium attendance record is.

A Sam Boyd Stadium background piece on Page 48 claims it is 41,091 for UNLV vs. Wisconsin in 1996. A chart of the same page lists the record as 40,091, for the same game. But it seems that at least one of the three WAC title games (BYU-Wyoming in 1996) exceeded the UNLV-Wisconsin crowd -- regardless of what number you use.

If there's a mention of the WAC games in the UNLV guide, I missed it. Digging into the Sun archives, it turns out that 41,238 were on hand to watch BYU and Wyoming in the inaugural WAC title tilt -- so that would appear to be the stadium record (for any Sam Boyd date not involving the Grateful Dead, that is).

As an aside, last year's WAC title game also was a sellout. But with the auxiliary grandstand under the scoreboard out of commission, only 32,000 and change crammed into the House That (Sam) Boyd Built to watch Ground Force edge BYU, 20-13.

With 24,000-plus tickets for the Oct. 23 Cougars-Rebels game already spoken for, the attendance mark is within grasp. But Terry Cottle, the UNLV associate athletic director in charge of football marketing, said the ticket pace will have to increase, at least slightly, between now and then.

Two dubious moves by the athletic department may work against setting the record. The game will be available on local TV (as part of the SportsWest Mountain West package). And worse than that, kickoff was moved from 4 to 7:30 p.m., to accommodate the visiting television coverage.

Besides forfeiting a couple of hours of sunshine (and warmth), the Rebels also may lose a significant number of implosion fans by agreeing to the later kickoff. There's always a chance Mike Tyson will self-destruct against Orlin Norris that night, and you can bet a lot of curious observers will be tuned into Showtime just in case he does.

Regardless, there will be a lot of bodies on hand for football. But unless BYU changes its colors again (the Cougars went from royal blue and white to dark metallic blue and tan prior to this season), the Rebels won't get a media guide shot of a packed stadium it can use in color this time.

The stadium was a sea of red when UNLV met Wisconsin in 1996, but that's only because red also is the Badgers' primary color. Three-fourths of the crowd that night seemed to touting dairy products.

But Cottle says if any BYU fans need tickets -- the Cougars already have sold their standard allotment of 1,200 -- they needn't pay scalper prices. He said he even has pro-rated UNLV season tickets ($50 for sideline, $30 for end zone) that he will glady set aside for any Cougar fans who want them.

And there's a bonus: any fan who buys a pro-rated season ticket will have the opportunity to renew for the entire 2000 season, when UNLV might actually be good.

"Naturally, we would prefer to see a stadium filled with red," Cottle said. "But a sold seat is a sold seat."

* AROUND THE HORN: As Jim "Third Person" Weaver himself might say, "Jim Weaver seems to finally have found a home." The former UNLV athletic director, who was despised both here and at Western Michigan, where he sought sanctuary after Rollie Massive Ego's "secret" contract was made public, signed what essentially was a lifetime contract extension with Virginia Tech this week. With the Hokies challenging for a national football title, it appears Weaver is gonna have the last laugh on those around here who thought his strong suit was bearing a resemblance to actor Tim Conway. ...

Here's a solution to baseball's dilemma of having playoff games end about the time Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford used to call it a night: Get rid of the Wild Card tier and go back to playing the games in the afternoon, when Americans used to adjust their schedules around baseball (and not the other way around). ...

And finally, ABC must want to phase out Jim McKay in the worst way. McKay's wide world of sports got a little more narrow this week when ABC let the Kentucky Derby (and horse racing's entire Triple Crown) get away to rival NBC. McKay had been reduced to the role of studio host of the Derby in recent years. To a play-by-play man, that's like an aging slugger being moved to first base in an attempt to prolong his usefulness.

But regardless of how many log-rolling tournaments he was forced to cover, McKay's legacy is secure.

Unlike some of the events he reported on, there was nothing contrived about the tears in his eyes the night those Israeli Olympic athletes were killed by terrorists in Munich.