Columnist Dean Juipe: Schlossnagle says bright future ahead

Dean Juipe

Monday, April 1, 2002 | 9:46 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4084.

The scouting reports must have been dreary.

UNLV hasn't had a winning baseball season since 1998 and community interest in the program has been stagnant. In that time the Rebels have been neither creative nor stimulating, and the impact is measurable in diminished crowd counts and lessened corporate support.

Those and other alarmingly telltale signs were made available to Jim Schlossnagle as he weighed an offer to take command of the Rebels last year. And while he was in the enviable position of being able to pick and choose where he might begin his head-coaching career, he opted for UNLV in spite of the warnings.

Now, more than halfway through his rookie season, he says there's no looking back.

"I might be disappointed with where we're at in terms of wins and losses, but I'm not disappointed I came here," Schlossnagle said Sunday, his Rebels having downed New Mexico 15-6 at Wilson Stadium to complete a three-game sweep. "In fact, I'm encouraged, based on what some people told me it was going to be like."

He's inclined to believe UNLV can and will build a baseball dynasty, and that's heartening to fans who would settle for the Rebels reprising their glory days of the 1980s.

"This is a great place," Schlossnagle said. "We're going to win and we're going to win at a high level. It's too good of a place not to; we have too many advantages."

He mentioned the support of athletic director John Robinson by name and implied that it was a plus to be recruiting to Las Vegas. Yet he knows there's a high standard that must be met before attendance zooms much past the 400 or so who took in the Easter game.

"It's a fact that we've got to win," Schlossnagle said. "I figured that out pretty quickly about this city. For things to change, the team has to be good and I've got to be involved in the community."

His first UNLV team looks marginally talented while being statistically challenged. The Rebels are 14-16 overall and 4-5 in the Mountain West Conference heading into a nonleague game tonight with Arizona State, but their significant numbers are disturbing.

UNLV is being out-hit by the opposition (.303 to .281), is being dominated in terms of home-run production (29 to 12) and has little speed to speak of as opponents have stolen 18 more bases. Its pitching staff is also on the short end of comparisons involving ERA (6.71 to 5.31), strikeouts and walks allowed.

Add in a disjointed schedule that Schlossnagle inherited and called "a travesty" and the Rebels haven't seen the .500 mark since their 20th game.

"It's very hard for me," said Schlossnagle, the pitching coach for a Tulane program that had a run of six straight NCAA Regional appearances, topped by a 56-win season last year and a trip to the College World Series. "I'm an extremely competitive guy and I'm not sure I remember ever being on a team that was 0-1, let alone two or three games under .500."

Sweeping New Mexico picked up his spirits but he still said his team "should be four or five games better" than it is.

Something tells me his players know where he stands.