Columnist Steve Guiremand: Garrett will enjoy suite view here

Steve Guiremand

Friday, Nov. 23, 2001 | 11:21 a.m.

Steve Guiremand covers college football for the Sun. His Around Campus appears on Fridays during football season. Reach him at 259-2324 or steveg@ lasvegassun.com.

Merry Christmas, Mike Garrett. Not only are your USC Trojans 99.9 percent certain to get a Las Vegas Bowl invitation early next week, but you'll be able to watch your team play from the comfort of one of those nice new luxury suites in Sam Boyd Stadium on Christmas Day.

"Yes, each of the A.D.'s will have a suite up there," Tina Kunzer-Murphy, executive director of the Las Vegas Bowl, said this week. "Each team will get a suite. Whether the athletic director or the president or both want to use it is up to them."

Whew! I'm glad that is straightened out.

Having covered USC's football program for 12 years before moving to Las Vegas in February of 1998, I felt it was my civic duty to make sure that the Las Vegas Bowl folks be alerted that it is mandatory that Garrett, the 1965 Heisman Trophy winner (and the man who put UNLV football back on the map by firing John Robinson just two years after a Rose Bowl win over Northwestern) have his own private suite to watch the game.

About a dozen members of the L.A. media who sat directly in front of Garrett during USC's 26-16 victory at Cal in 1995 found out how ugly things can get if Garrett doesn't have his own special quarters to watch a game.

Those chumps at Cal didn't see fit to save a private suite in dumpy old Memorial Stadium for Garrett and his entourage. So the USC A.D. was forced to sit with members of the fourth estate.

One of the few rules that govern press box etiquette, other than you should clean your plate before going back for thirds, is that there is no cheering in the press box. An announcement is made to the media before each game to remind it of that fact.

But every time USC made a good play that afternoon, Garrett made it a point to cheer loudly. Very loudly.

When a Cal sports information director made another announcement about "no cheering in the press box," Garrett responded with a request. "Then get me my own bleeping box!" he screamed.

It was the kind of temper tantrum that any 2-year-old would envy. Even better, it gave the media covering what would have been just another ho-hum SC-Cal game a decent sidebar to write. I mean, you can only write so many stories about Keyshawn Johnson.

The only bad news for Garrett and USC President Steven Sample is that their private suite is on the same level as the working press here. That means they'll probably have to rub elbows with many of the same L.A. reporters they have been dodging since the firing of Paul Hackett and the Trojans' NCAA probation for a tutoring scandal.

Oh, well. I'm not even sure Garrett and Sample will even make it here for the game. After all, they turned down a chance to play Air Force in the 1997 Las Vegas Bowl and a $700,000 payday because they felt it was bad for the school's image.

Instead, Garrett was busy making an ill-fated run at Lou Holtz and hiring arguably the worst Division I football coach of the past decade, Hackett, to replace Robinson.

But that kind of blind logic has finally turned around at Heritage Hall thanks to the fact the Trojans haven't been to a bowl game since getting hammered by TCU in the 1998 Sun Bowl. The excitement of a possible Las Vegas Bowl berth following last weekend's 27-0 blanking of crosstown rival UCLA was so great that the LAPD had to have mounted police surround the Los Angeles Coliseum goalposts so that giddy Trojan fans didn't try to tear them down.

No, I for one, want to personnally welcome Mike Garrett to this year's Las Vegas Bowl. Enjoy the buffets. Enjoy the spectacular hotels. Enjoy the even more spectacular showgirls.

But most of all, enjoy your bleeping suite.

An active argument

Some around the UNLV athletic department are campaigning to retire the No. 28 jersey of Rebel cornerback Kevin Thomas.

Only one Rebel football player has had his number retired -- quarterback Randall Cunningham. And it should stay that way.

Thomas had a excellent career at UNLV and will leave with a number of defensive records. He has a 50-50 chance of being named the Mountain West Conference's Defensive Player of the Year.

But retiring a player's number should be reserved only for a truly great player, a Heisman Trophy winner or a perennial All-Pro who goes on to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. To do so otherwise cheapens the honor.

Kevin Thomas has a chance to be a first- or second-round NFL draft pick. He is a third-team All-American who didn't even make the final 12 cut for the Jim Thorpe Award honoring college football's finest defensive back.

Unless he goes on to become the second coming of Deion Sanders in the NFL, there's no need to retire No. 28.

Once around the Mountain West

* AIR FORCE: Falcons' 34-10 loss to UNLV last Saturday snapped an eight-game November home win streak for Fisher DeBerry's squad. Air Force left on Tuesday for Saturday's game at Hawaii and will spend a week in Honolulu before returning home to chilly Colorado Springs.

* BYU: Cougars are 11-0 for the first time since 1984 when they finished 13-0 and won the national championship.

* COLORADO STATE: Wide receiver Pete Rebstock, who is 14th nationally in kick return average (27.6 avg.), has been named one of the 10 finalists for the Mosi Tatupu Special Teams Player of the Year Award.

* NEW MEXICO: Placekicker Vladimir Borombozin missed his first field goal try of the season, a 25-yarder, in last week's loss to Colorado State. That snapped a streak of 16 consecutive field tries without a miss dating to last season. Borombozin is 15-for-16 on field goal tries this year.

* SAN DIEGO STATE: Among the names being mentioned as possible head coaching replacements for Ted Tollner are Rich Brooks, June Jones, John Cooper, Dick Tomey, Mike Riley, Oregon assistant Jeff Tedford and New York Giants defensive coordinator John Fox.

* UNLV: Cornerback Kevin Thomas was named a third-team All-American by Football News this week, only the second defensive player in school history to earn All-American honors from one of the six major agencies. The other was defensive lineman Jim Ingersoll in 1974 who earned second team recognition from the Associated Press. Gee, maybe they should retire his number, too!

* UTAH: Utes, who conclude their season next week at Air Force, held three of their six Mountain West Conference opponents (Wyoming, UNLV, San Diego State) without an offensive touchdown.

* WYOMING: Cowboys (2-8, 0-8), who travel to Kansas on Saturday, finished winless in Mountain West Conference play for the second straight year and have lost 15 straight MWC games. "We'll have to wait another year to win a conference game," coach Vic Koenning said. "That's a bitter pill to swallow." Pokes had an astounding nine turnovers, including six interceptions by quarterback Casey Bramlet, in last Saturday's 38-16 loss at San Diego State.