Columnist Ron Kantowski: New schedule does not cut the mustard

Thursday, May 3, 2001 | 11:12 a.m.

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

Like most Americans, the older I get, the more set in my ways I get. At this rate, it won't be long before my ways are set in quick-drying concrete.

But now, thanks to the money-grubbing NCAA, I'm gonna need a sledgehammer and a VCR that works to make it through the football season.

For the longest time, the football season was divided into three tidy packages: High schools on Friday night, colleges on Saturday and pros on Sunday and once on Monday.

It was almost as if the football gods conspired to do us a favor. Unlike the numbskulls who decided to sell hot dogs in packs of 10 but buns in bags of eight, they got it right the first time.

But you knew it couldn't last.

First there was Monday Night Football on Thursday night, which made me believe the hot dog guys had resurfaced at NFL headquarters. And now, the NCAA has lifted a rule that previously prevented its members from teeing it up on Friday night.

The Mountain West Conference (of which UNLV is a member), the Western Athletic Conference and Conference USA immediately starting shuffling games around as if they were the playing pieces in Three Card Monte. All three of those conferences are starved for attention, and by moving games from Saturday afternoon to Friday night, they are certain to get some. Five of the six Friday night games will be televised by ESPN.

UNLV will be a participant in two of them: Sept. 7 vs. Northwestern and Sept. 14 vs. Colorado State.

I suppose you could make a case for the Rebels jumping at the opportunity. When UNLV met Air Force in one of ABC's regional games last year, it marked the first time since leather helmets that the Rebels were featured on network TV. And were it not for John Robinson's presence on the sideline, West Coast viewers (including potential Rebel recruits) probably would have been subjected to another meaningless Pac-10 game instead.

But from an exposure standpoint, playing on cable on Friday night is probably even more desirable. I mean, once The Man Show goes off, what's a football fan to do?

Well, if he's got a son playing outside linebacker for Bishop Gorman or a daughter leading cheers for Cheyenne High, he'll have too much to do.

Scheduling opposite those kids -- and their parents -- might hurt UNLV at the box office more than it might imagine, especially when you multiply them by 24 (the number of local high schools). And it already has damaged the relationship between the university and the local high schools.

Larry McKay, athletic director for the Clark County School District, is upset that he didn't hear from UNLV until it already had pulled the trigger on Friday Night Football. McKay said the university asked him to move the high school games scheduled for those two Fridays ahead to Thursday night.

He declined as if the request were an offsides penalty in the last minute of a 42-7 blowout.

"There was really no consideration for our season and our tradition," McKay said. "UNLV playing two games on Friday nights ... is really a slap in the face to high school sports. I'm not happy with it all. It's a bad idea."

It would appear the Rebels have taken the hot dog guys off the hook, at least at the local level.