Columnist Dean Juipe: OK Vegas, straighten up for a day

Dean Juipe

Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2001 | 10:26 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.

If you haven't already been on your best behavior today, straighten up before it's too late.

No public fighting, cursing or needless debauchery.

No loitering, spitting or lewd remarks.

Mrs. Rick Pitino is in town and what she sees and how she's treated apparently is going to go a long way toward determining whether her husband will accept the UNLV men's basketball coaching job that comes open with the conclusion of the regular season Saturday.

UNLV wants Pitino. But first Las Vegas has to win over his wife.

She's here, we're led to believe, to look beneath the surface and examine the community's infrastructure. With two kids (of a brood of five) still to raise, she can't be too careful.

She needs a little reassurance, especially when the place she and her family are considering is known globally as Sin City.

Those charged with showing her around may want to take a protective philosophy into the task. For starters, they should hide those early week newspapers with their headlines and accounts on the seven homicides that took place in the valley over the weekend.

And they should have their travel routes closely scouted, so as not to pass by any of the 1,000 topless and nude joints that beckon the morally corrupt as well as our 200,000 weekly tourists.

And no talk about nuclear waste or the rash of promiscuous teachers and their dalliances with underage students or the obnoxious councilman who's always feathering his own nest. The infighting between government agencies and the constant disruptions in the traffic flow due to the disjointed road construction are also taboo.

Those guiding Mrs. Pitino's day should stick to the city's strengths. It's said she's a shopping fanatic, so keep her entertained with our bountiful selection of first-rate malls and stores.

Proceed with caution if she wants to do anything more than glimpse at the gambling that's all around us. And don't let on that it's a vice with tentacles that stretch well into every neighborhood.

Tell her, yes, UNLV always has someone scrubbing the sidewalks and curbs outside the Thomas & Mack Center and that her husband's office -- should he decide to take over the Rebels -- can be refurbished in gold lame, should he choose. Tell her we have a lot of rich people living here and when it comes to the UNLV basketball team, they'll do anything to make their presence felt.

But leave out the clandestine stuff they've done that periodically results in the Rebels being levied with harmful sanctions, put on probation and booted from any and all post-season events as this season's team was.

Remind her that as recently as 1990 UNLV was the national champion. Remind her of that several times, in fact.

Mention that many of us feel the Rebels can have a return to prominence and that the trials, tribulations, misdeeds and embarrassments of the past decade were nothing but a playful if bumpy ride for a resilient university with a legion of caring boosters.

Limit her stimuli and put a good spin on everything that comes across her presence.

Make the place seem like Palm Springs, if not a Mediterranean paradise, for one lousy day.