Rebel players not surprised at football game postponement

Steve Guiremand

Friday, Sept. 14, 2001 | 9:41 a.m.

All UNLV athletic events have been cancelled through Sunday, including:

UNLV athletics will resume with its normally scheduled competitions on Monday as the women's golf team will compete in Franklin, Tenn.

UNLV's football team was supposed to have opened Mountain West Conference play tonight at Sam Boyd Stadium against two-time defending MWC champ Colorado State.

But in reponse to the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Tuesday morning, the game was postponed until Oct. 20. So John Robinson's club spent Thursday afternoon and today getting a head start practicing for next Saturday night's game against the University of Arizona in Tucson.

Rebel players said they weren't surprised when they got the news on late Wednesday afternoon that their game would not be played tonight.

"Not at all," senior linebacker Scott Parkhurst said. "I would have been surprised if we would have played.

"I totally understand why they postponed the game with the situation that is going on. I'm sympathetic to the safety of both teams traveling at this time."

Still, the competitor in Parkhurst was hoping the game would go on as scheduled.

"I wanted to play Colorado State (1-1) right now," he said. "I feel it would be a better situation for us playing them early in the season before they really have a chance to jell and become the team that they were last year."

"Yeah, I was disappointed we couldn't play," said sophomore wide receiver Michael Johnson, who set a MWC record with 174 receiving yards in last week's 37-28 loss to Northwestern. "But we all understand the circumstances. A lot of people have lost their lives. I don't think America is really ready yet to sit in front of the TV and watch football again."

All-America cornerback Kevin Thomas said he didn't think it "would have been hard for us to play the game. We were looking forward to playing. But I think we are probably better off that we aren't playing the game (tonight)."

Thomas spent part of his youth living with his relatives not far from Giants Stadium. He said nobody from his family was injured.

"I woke up Tuesday morning and turned on the TV and saw all the buildings falling," Thomas said. "I was like, 'What movie is this?' But it was on ESPN. ... It was just hard to believe."