Columnist Ron Kantowski: UNLV needs to bag scrubs, nab ‘Trotters

Tuesday, Nov. 13, 2001 | 10:47 a.m.

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

Tonight the UNLV basketball team will play its second meaningless exhibition, this one against a group known as Trans-Global Airlines or North American Van Lines or some such obscure moniker.

Last Saturday, the Rebels' patsy was a CYO-caliber team billed as EA Sports which, contrary to its sponsor's slogan, was never "in the game" against Charlie Spoonhour and the Five Dwarfs.

I still find it amazing that in tighten-the-belt economic times, schools continue to spend buckets of money on these frivolous Shirts vs. Shirts scrimmages.

But if they insist -- and as long as North Carolina and Kentucky insist, you know that UNLV will -- why not make them a little more compelling?

That's why UNLV should do everything within its power to schedule the Harlem Globetrotters next year, up to and including comped Siegfried and Roy tickets for Meadowlark Lemon.

Lemon, of course, is no longer affiliated with the 'Trotters, but former NBA veteran Lionel Hollins, a native Las Vegan who last year coached the defunct Las Vegas Silver Bandits of the equally defunct International Basketball League, has surfaced as a Globetrotters assistant coach. And Warren Rosegreen, the rebounding whiz who during his UNLV career wiped the glass clean more often than a Windex salesman, is in his second year on the 'Trotters' 25-man roster.

The Clown Princes of Basketball have been playing it straight during their current American college tour. They beat Iowa 79-76 last Wednesday on national TV and followed that up with wins over St John's (75-69) and Minnesota (79-70).

Surely, Hollins could put in the good word and get the ball rolling -- or in this case, spinning on a fingertip -- for a Rebels vs. Globetrotters game at the Thomas & Mack Center.

Somewhere in a dusty footlocker, I've got an old 45 of "Sweet Georgia Brown" UNLV could have in order to make the 'Trotters feel at home during the pregame warm-ups.

While bringing the Globetrotters to town certainly would cost a little more, I'll bet UNLV wouldn't have to give away balcony tickets in a futile effort to draw a crowd, either.

Up to that point, the Falcons' running game had amassed roughly a bazillion yards against the Rams' weary defense. Yet DeBerry elected to take a delay of game penalty before sending his punting team on the field.

Alas, one of the Gallimore twins blocked it for CSU, and the other Gallimore twin picked up the football and ran it in for a touchdown. Thus, Air Force wound up losing a game it totally dominated, 28-21.

But that wasn't always the case. Back in 1987, a couple of months after he won the American League Rookie of the Year award, McGwire was in town to sign autographs at the Gold Coast. The Sun's Brian Hilderbrand was covering baseball back then, but when he asked McGwire for a few minutes of his time, a not-so-Big Mac (McGwire was built more like a power forward than an offensive tackle prior to bulking up on performance enhancing diet supplements) rudely refused.

Of course, had Brian offered McGwire the standard "flat item" fee for signing his reporter's notebook, he might have gotten his interview.

Anonymous maybe to baseball fans in Keokuk, Iowa. But certainly not here. Mathews and Ludwick were two of the major league pitchers that Fred Dallimore developed at UNLV, and Ludwick is a native son, having prepped at Eldorado High.

And what baseball fan worth the salt on his soft pretzel doesn't know that Stein went 5-9 with a 6.67 ERA for the A's in 1998 -- the same year McGwire hit 70?

In reality, what were the A's smoking when they agreed to that trade?