Columnist Dean Juipe: Wins, losses secondary, Barto says

Dean Juipe

Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2001 | 10:28 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or 259-4084.

It isn't always occupied, but there is a hot seat as it pertains to UNLV and its head coaches.

Rod Soesbe was sitting in it a year ago -- as he was admittedly very much aware -- and paid the ultimate professional price when his baseball team turned in another mediocre season last spring and he was fired.

Conversely, women's basketball coach Regina Miller was on the spot from the moment she was hired in 1998, given her less than stunning background. Yet she clearly is no longer in jeopardy of losing her job and certainly has been given a reprieve from the close and subjective scrutiny that accompanied her arrival on campus.

Earlier, Jeff Horton was fired as football coach and, although he was never on the hot seat per se, Bill Bayno went down as men's basketball coach. In each of these fairly recent cases, wins and losses determined the coach's fate.

Which brings us to men's soccer coach Barry Barto.

Referred to in print as "overpaid" at $85,785 by a colleague last week who made his evaluation strictly on the fact that UNLV was on a run of seven straight losing seasons until going 10-7-1 last year, Barto is convinced he is being judged by a different criteria by his superiors. As he reiterated several times during a 90-minute conversation in his office Tuesday, he sees his job as one of developing a competitive team while molding upstanding individuals.

"I've been here 20 years and my assumption is that I must be doing a pretty good job," Barto said. "Maybe I'm not doing a great job, but I'm doing a pretty good job based on the expectations that the administration and the athletic director have set out for me.

"In the last eight years, no, we didn't do too good when it came to winning games. But we played good soccer and had great students."

The Rebels -- who play Friday at San Diego St. and then close the home portion of their schedule Sunday with Sacramento St. -- are 7-6 this season, making Barto's record 194-150-35 since coming to UNLV in 1982. Only swimming coach Jim Reitz, at 22 years, has greater seniority among the school's head coaches.

Barto, 51, has obviously had some great teams and five of them earned NCAA Tournament berths. But the last of those was in 1988, which, arguably, leaves him open for criticism by those who are inclined.

But, apparently, no one from the university or the community at large is.

"If I were in the business of wins and losses, I'd be coaching in the pros," Barto said, adding that he has rejected three overtures -- including one last year -- to go to Major League Soccer. "No one's more competitive than I am and I want to see us get back to the NCAA Tournament and we're working hard at it.

"But I see myself as a teacher first. Maybe it's philosophic on my part, but my concern is identifying good individuals on and off the field, bringing them here and seeing them graduate."

He stressed that the standard he goes by is the one the school has outlined for him.

"I've been told if I can't graduate a student-athlete, don't bring him in," he said. "Now, if I'm going to be judged by wins and losses, that's another thing. But the people that count feel we're doing the right things."

Barto, who splits 9.9 scholarships among his 20 players, didn't complain about the funding he's accorded from UNLV (despite my prodding). "I'm a team player," he said. "Whatever they give me, I'll make it work."

Nonetheless, it's clear that some schools give soccer a greater priority than it receives at UNLV.

"A lot of schools have stepped up to the plate with regards to more funding and better facilities," Barto said. "And we're at a disadvantage in that we're recruiting against a number of schools in vastly populated areas, and that a lot of parents in other states don't want to send their kids to Las Vegas.

"But we do the best with what we've got. Our players are prepared, they behave and we do all the right things.

"We have the right balance."

Those who call the shots apparently agree.

"Until someone tells me 'It's your job to win' and do it at the expense of academics if need be, I'm not changing a thing," he said. "I'm working harder than I ever have and our players are better prepared than they ever were, and that meets my definition of success."

He closed by saying "I'm not interested in going anywhere else" and added that "the Barto family has made a lot of contributions to UNLV and is committed to the school."

Overpaid?

I don't think so, at least not within the context of his job description. Yet the flip side of his defense begs another question or two.

If wins and losses aren't singularly important in "non-revenue" sports such as collegiate soccer, then why even have them? Or, less extreme, why bother turning on the scoreboard?

But we'll leave that debate for another day.