Boosters try to sell Logan on AD job

Steve Guiremand

Thursday, June 21, 2001 | 10:17 a.m.

The phone was ringing off the hook in Don Logan's office on Wednesday afternoon. And it wasn't friends asking the Las Vegas 51s president and general manager for tickets to that night's game against the Salt Lake Stingers at Cashman Field.

Nope, it was people wondering if the popular longtime Las Vegas sports figure was interested in applying for the UNLV athletic director job after current Rebel AD Charles Cavagnaro announced he would retire next June.

"It's an intriguing situation," Logan admitted. "It's the 10,000-pound gorilla in this market."

Logan, a 1981 graduate of Utah State who grew up in Tonopah, is very familiar with the inner workings of UNLV's athletic department. His brother-in-law, Jeff Horton, coached the Rebel football team for five years before being replaced by current coach John Robinson following the 1998 season.

Long regarded as one of the most influential and talented sports executives in Las Vegas, Logan received about a dozen calls before the 51s' 9-3 loss to Salt Lake from UNLV boosters who want to back him in a bid for Cavagnaro's spot.

"It's flattering," Logan said. "I think this is such a unique city. Whoever they bring in has to be somebody that understands Las Vegas." And very few people understand it better than Logan, the man behind the successful Big League Weekend exhibition baseball games at Cashman Field and a longtime member of the Las Vegas Bowl selection committee. But would Logan, who also serves as vice president of the Pacific Coast League, be willing to trade in his minor league baseball duties to try to run an up-and-coming Division I college program?

"Right now we're in the middle of the baseball season and all my energy has to be focused on what we're doing out here," Logan said. "But it is an intiguing situation."

Stay tuned.