Rothermel got UNLV back on right path

Steve Addy

Thursday, June 21, 2001 | 10:27 a.m.

WHAT: Southern Nevada Sports Hall of Fame inductions

WHEN: Induction banquet, 6:30 p.m. Friday, Cox Pavilion; golf tournament, 7 a.m. Friday, Dragon Ridge Golf and Country Club

TICKETS: $150 induction banquet, $400 golf and banquet. Call 386-7200. Proceeds benefit the UNLV athletic department, the UNLV boxing team, Boys and Girls Clubs of Las Vegas and Henderson, and the Andre Agassi Charter School.

INDUCTEE PROFILES:

Monday: Cliff Findlay

Tuesday: Frank Hawkins

Wednesday: Dr. Donald Romeo

Today: Dr. Brad Rothermel

Friday: 1989-90 UNLV basketball team

When Dr. Brad Rothermel left West Virginia to become UNLV's athletic director in 1981, he wouldn't have been shocked if some peers questioned his sanity.

After 20 years of climbing the administrative ladder, he was finally getting a chance to run his own department, and that was nice. But UNLV wasn't exactly a plum job.

The Rebels had gone through three ADs in a year, the department's deficit had risen to $750,000, and only one sport -- men's basketball -- was generating any profit.

Even if Rothermel adjusted quickly, he knew his chances for success were only 50-50.

"I was the fourth AD in 13 months. I knew I was inheriting a situation that was really volatile," he recalled.

But true to his optimistic nature, Rothermal also saw great potential. Funds had already been allocated to build the Thomas & Mack Center, basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian had given the school a national presence, and Las Vegas was becoming America's fastest-growing city.

"Difficult situations can be good jobs," Rothermel said. "I saw UNLV as a great opportunity. It was a young, growing institution. It was clear we were going to have an outstanding basketball facility and it was obvious Tark was an extremely capable coach."

With Rothermel at the helm and Tarkanian coaching UNLV to its first national title, the Rebels experienced their greatest athletic success during Rothermel's tenure (1981-90).

His career will be commemorated Friday when he's inducted into the Southern Nevada Sports Hall of Fame. He will be inducted with ex-Raiders fullback Frank Hawkins, boxing physician Dr. Donald Romeo, longtime Las Vegas sports booster Cliff Findlay and UNLV's 1990 national championship basketball team.

The Rebels' NCAA title turned out to be Rothermel's swan song at UNLV, as he resigned later that year. But he left a legacy of success that the Rebels haven't come close to matching.

In the Pacific Coast Athletic Association (later the Big West), which UNLV joined in 1982, the school won 33 titles in nine sports during Rothermel's stay.

The Rebels also made the national polls in several sports, including men's basketball (No. 1), men's golf (No. 1), men's soccer (No. 2), women's basketball (No. 2), baseball (No. 4) and women's track (No. 4). The softball team played in the College World Series, and the football team played in the 1984 California Bowl.

That top-to-bottom success was Rothermel's pride and joy.

"It was my intention that every program be nationally competitive," he said. "We had a big presence in basketball, but we wanted every program to reach that level, especially football.

"Before I retired, I wanted us to win a national championship in something. It didn't have to be basketball, though it turned out that way. But it could've been any of several sports."

Tarkanian said this week that Rothermel's resignation was a sad day for UNLV.

"He was the best AD in the country," Tarkanian said. "Every sport was in the black, he was a great leader, and he had zero ego. You enjoyed going to work in that atmosphere. When he left, we went from having the best AD to Dennis Finfrock, who I think was the worst AD who ever lived. Our office became a war zone. Nobody got along. When Brad left, everything changed."

When Rothermel arrived at UNLV, his method to rejuvenate the program was to downsize it. He quickly eliminated 10 teams, including wrestling, men's cross country, men's track (outdoor and indoor) and women's tennis.

"Some major decisions had to be made, because we were $750,000 in debt," he said. "We didn't reduce the budget as much as redistribute the funds to the programs that had the best potential for growth.

"We balanced the budget my first year, which I had promised the (Board of Regents) when I was hired."

With the 1983 opening of the Thomas & Mack Center, basketball attendance more than doubled and revenues eventually tripled. The athletic budget ballooned from $2.75 million in Rothermel's first year to about $14.5 million in 1990, with a $4 million surplus.

Rothermel, who'll be 64 in December, honed his management style during an administrative career that began after a brief stab at pro baseball. He pitched in the Milwaukee Braves' chain in 1960, "But my coaches would say I was more of a thrower."

In 1960 he became an assistant baseball coach at Northern Illinois, his alma mater. In 1965 he began a four-year stint as an assistant AD at Illinois, and then served similar roles at Kansas State (1974-78) and West Virginia (1978-80).

After 10 years of running UNLV's program, Rothermel stepped down amid public rancor between university president Robert Maxson and Tarkanian, but says that was only a secondary reason.

"A chasm had developed between president Maxson and Tark. That was part of it," Rothermel said.

"But mostly it was because the NCAA was changing the way it distributed revenue from postseason basketball. It was going to cause major cuts for us. After helping to build 14 programs, some of which had been glorified intramural teams, I wasn't interested in presiding over tearing them down."

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