Columnist Ron Kantowski: Marathon man goes the distance

Thursday, Feb. 3, 2000 | 10:58 a.m.

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

There was an old Saturday Night Live bit in which Billy Crystal and Christopher Guest -- in the guise of custodians or night watchmen or some other working stiffs -- would reminisce about household tasks that had gone awry.

Crystal would start by saying something like "You ever try to hang a picture and ... and ... "

"Crush your tongue with a ball-peen hammer?" Guest would chime in.

"Yeah," Crystal would say. "I hate when that happens."

They were the quintessential gluttons for punishment -- that is, until a 53-year-old massage therapist-turned-masochist named Jerry Dunn from Spearfish, S.D., wandered along.

Dunn will run in Sunday's Las Vegas International Marathon, which is an admirable feat unto itself, although hardly unique in that roughly 5,000 others will do the same.

But what does separate Dunn from the pack is that he also ran the 26.2-mile course on Tuesday. And Wednesday. And he plans to do it today, Friday and Saturday, too. And then next Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday ...

In fact, Dunn said he's not leaving town until he runs the course on 17 consecutive days. By that time, he will have logged 445.4 miles. That's more than even the Winston Cup guys do when they pass through town, and they're in race cars.

Before you label Dunn a lunatic, consider he's going to reprise the 17 marathons-in-17-days routine in 12 U.S. cities (one per month) this year. That will give him 204 for 2000, obliterating his own world record of 104 in a single year.

"Lunatic" doesn't begin to do Dunn justice. He's nuttier than a fruitcake at Rip Taylor's house.

Forrest Gump, you may have just met your match.

"Yeah, I would say there's some lunacy involved in it," concedes Dunn. "But I'm very durable."

Now there's a revelation.

* PACK THE MACK: Am I alone in thinking that UNLV basketball coach Bill Bayno's promise to shave his head if Saturday's game against Utah sells out is a sad commentary about how far the program has slipped?

In the old days, Jerry Tarkanian (who was naturally bald), didn't have to entice fans to buy tickets when a marquee opponent came to town by partaking in sideshow antics.

Granted, the stunt probably wasn't Bayno's idea, and he probably felt that if he said no he would be deemed a party-pooper.

But Bayno should take his cue from Rick Majerus. The Utes have won 47 in a row at the Huntsman Center, but I have yet to see the portly Majerus (who is also naturally bald) waddling around the sidelines in a toupee.

* DREAM WEAVER? MAYBE NOT: When then-UNLV athletic director Jim Weaver proposed a few years ago that UNLV and Nevada-Reno meet twice every year on the football field, everybody thought he was a fool.

But maybe ol' Rally Flags -- remember that harebrained idea of Weaver's, where everybody was supposed to fly a UNLV flag on game days? -- was onto something.

On Jan. 8 of last month, the women's basketball juggernauts at Tennessee and UConn played at Knoxville. Last night, they met again in Storrs, Conn. The women's basketball juggernauts at Tennessee and UConn do not play in the same conference.

But somebody must have figured out that if that's a game fans will pay to see not once but twice, then why not let them do it?

* HOMER SIMPLETONS: Somehow, you just knew that dealing with the Major League Baseball Players Association was going to be liking pulling teeth. In the case of next weekend's Big League Challenge home run derby at Cashman Field, it's going to be like pulling Austin Powers' teeth.

First came the news that fans would not be allowed to gather on the berms beyond the outfield fences to shag the home run balls. That's too bad, but at least you can understand the logic. With collectors having turned any ball that comes within three feet of Mark McGwire's or Sammy Sosa's bat into priceless treasures, fistfights and other shenanigans could break out when one of their rockets leaves the yard.

But the local media has been informed that because the Challenge is a made-for-TV event that will air later this year, the press won't be privy to the results -- as if reporting them would spoil the drama.

The Wendy's Three-Tour Challenge golf outing, another made-for-TV event held annually out at Lake Las Vegas, tried to do the same thing until this year, when nobody bothered to show up. Then they called in the scores.

* AROUND THE HORN: The Rams' factor already is being felt in local sports books, which aren't being so generous with their odds to win Super Bowl XXXV. Some lucky fans were able to get St. Louis at 200- or even 300-1 at some places prior to the start of last season, but if the futures chart at the Rio race and sports book is any indication, the books learned a lesson. The Rio lists only six teams in triple figures and none longer than the Bengals and Browns at 150-1. ... Former Las Vegas Thunder mucker Darcy Loewen, who once played in the NHL, is now digging the puck out of the corners for the Idaho Steelheads of the West Coast Hockey League, which is about as far from the NHL as you can get without a Zamboni that gets good fuel mileage. ... Bob Ryan of the Boston Globe said he can't wait to get to the Final Four and ask Cincinnati's Bob Huggins about his Bearcats' graduation rate. It was 0-for-Higgins' first 10 years at Cincy, in case anybody outside of the Ivy League is still interested in scholar-athletes