Columnist Ron Kantowski: G. Tarkanian’s point guard may get life in prison

Tuesday, April 4, 2000 | 10:21 a.m.

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

More evidence that the apples especially the bad apples don't fall far from the tree.

During his UNLV reign, Jerry Tarkanian built a basketball juggernaut by taking a chance on many players with marginal character. Some used Rebel basketball to turn their lives around while others went on to have brushes with the law.

Some wielded a pretty big brush. Former Rebel standout Richie Adams is serving a life sentence for stomping a teenage girl to death in New York.

Now, it would appear that risky recruiting strategy has caught up to Tark's oldest son George, the head basketball coach at College of the Sequoias JC in California.

James "Mookie" Hall, a 6-foot point guard from Waco, Texas, who led Sequoias to the California JC championship game, has been arrested on suspicion of kidnapping and raping three California women.

All told, Hall is now facing 10 felony rape charges and multiple life sentences in prison. So much for that Cincinnati scholarship.

"The person that I know couldn't have done this," George Tarkanian said. "If Mookie did this, he's a troubled man."

NIGHT AND DAY: Slam dunks and coaches throwing chairs aren't the only difference between men's and women's college basketball. CBS paid $256 million to televise this year's men's tourney while ESPN obtained the rights to the women's event for a mere pittance just $2.7 mil.

It may have paid too much, given TV ratings for the women that resemble my high school scoring average (under 1.0).

As USA Today's Christine Brennan wrote last week, if the women's tournament is ever going to grow in stature, it needs to be played out before the men's event gets under way. That also probably would mean starting the season a month early, but what's wrong with that?

Hoop-a-holics needing a fix before Big State or Disco Tech gets its season under way at some Hawaii tournament might even tune into the women for it.

Unless "The Man Show" goes to five nights a week, that is.

NOT SO FAST: Several national media outlets have all but booked hotel rooms for spring training 2002 in Las Vegas, based on their overzealous reporting on the possibility that as many as six major league teams could move their spring digs here.

Like this from the Street and Smith's Sports Business Daily newsletter: "Plans continue to move forward for a proposed complex about 30 miles outside the city. City officials would like to have the complex finished by 2002 if enough teams make commitments."

Thirty miles outside the city? Where's it gonna be, Hoover Dam?

The newsletter went on to say that the Las Vegas proposal could face another obstacle: Commissioner Bud Selig's office.

"I think the commissioner would take a long look at this before giving his approval," said Sandy Alderson, a senior vice president of Major League Baseball. "That doesn't mean he wouldn't give it, but I know he is concerned about any long-term baseball presence in Las Vegas."

According to the newslettter, among the other issues that need to be dealt with are the impact on the Grapefruit and Cactus leagues and where and who the Las Vegas-based teams would play. Traditionally, teams don't like traveling during spring training. The story said that would make "where the teams would play paramount to the issue."

I would say the $100 million price tag which is what such a facility would cost, according to an Arizona Republic quote attributed to an unnamed city official is more paramount to the issue.

PLAGIARISM IN PUGILISM: Is there anybody so gullible who would believe that a four-page, multi-syllabic missive addressed to members of the boxing media and signed by Evander Holyfield was written by the man himself?

On page 2 of the epistle, the Not So Real Deal discloses that his manager, Jim Thomas, "helped me write these views down." But if Holyfield wanted to convince the media that the thoughts that were expressed about Lennox Lewis and unifying the heavyweight title were indeed his, he should have used the following closing:

"Charley (Steiner), come on out and get your whuppin."

Then I might have believed it.

AROUND THE HORN: Slowly but surely, we're catching on. When the Charlotte Hornets became the latest pro sports franchise to mention Las Vegas as a possible relocation site amid an arena dispute, almost nobody around here reported it in a realistic context. Not even Mayor Oscar Goodman. ... It has taken him five seasons, but ex-Las Vegas Thunder heartthrob Radek Bonk finally has achieved the level of production that the Ottawa Senators expected when they drafted him third overall in 1994. Bonk on Sunday tallied his career-high 22nd goal of the season. ... Why can't the moderator at the NCAA news conference just refer to the players as that? It sounds so contrived when the moderator asks "Are there any more questions for the student-athletes?" Save the rhetoric for Princeton-Penn or the Division III tournament. ... Believe it or not, not every baseball player is guaranteed to have his picture put on a trading card. In that utility players aren't popular with collectors any more, some companies are no longer honoring the defensive specialists and other .239 hitters with a card. I guess that means I won't be parting with my mint condition Paul Popovich cards anytime soom.