Columnist Ron Kantowski: ‘335 Club’ still welcome at UNLV

Thursday, April 4, 2002 | 11:30 a.m.

Ron Kantowski's insider notes column appears Tuesday and his Page One column appears Thursday. He can be reached at ron@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4088.

Now that it has been five years since former coach Fred Dallimore told it like it was from a shaded corner of the UNLV dugout, about the only remaining links to the Rebels' proud baseball past at the start of this season were former baseball publicist Jim Gemma's horizontal media guide design and the presence of the "335 Club," a loosely organized booster club that for years has cheered the Rebels on (and good-naturedly antagonized the opposition) from the back of a pickup truck(s) adjacent to the left-field foul pole at Wilson Stadium/Barnson Field.

Well, so much for tradition.

When the 2002 media guide came out, it looked like every other one the school publishes. As for the 335 Club, it sadly appears to have disbanded. Taken its pony keg and gone home.

The 335 Club, named for the distance from home plate to its perch just beyond the left-field fence (and not for the number of beers it could put away during a doubleheader), was conspicuous by its absence during last weekend's three-game sweep of New Mexico.

Apparently, the group, which has been barbecuing at the ballyard in some shape or form since the late 1980s, interpreted first-year coach Jim Schlossnagle's decision to erect a wind screen in front of the left-field scoreboard as a sign that it no longer was welcome to watch the Rebels for free.

"They were still coming all last year but when Schlossnagle put that (screen) up, they got mad and left," said a source within the UNLV athletic department. "It's too bad, because we enjoyed having them."

But why would Schlossnagle intentionally run off some of the program's most ardent supporters?

The answer is he didn't. Not intentionally, anyway.

"This is the first time that somebody has explained to me what the 335 Club is," he said upon being contacted by the Sun. "Those are the kind of diehard, blue-collar fans we need. That kind of stuff is awesome."

Schlossnagle said the 335 Club sounds a lot like the "Volunteer Ground Crew" at Tulane, where he was the pitching coach for an NCAA powerhouse program before accepting the challenge of rebuilding the Rebels.

He said the pseudo ground crew consisted of 13 Green Wave fanatics, many of which had gone on to prominent jobs in the New Orleans community.

"We always made sure they had plenty of beer and whenever we got hats or stuff for the players, we made sure we ordered 13 extra," Schlossnagle said.

The left-field screen was totally Schlossnagle's idea, but he said it had nothing to do with blocking the 335 Club's vantage point. In fact, given UNLV's 15-16 record, it could even be argued that the coach did the gang a favor (although in talking to Schlossnagle, he seems like a sharp guy capable of returning the program to its past competitiveness).

"I thought by putting the new wind screen up it would spruce the place up," he said. "We certainly didn't want to discourage anybody from coming to the games."

Asked if the 335 Club would be welcome back, Schlossnagle enthusiastically said yes. He said the Rebels would be happy to find another vantage point for the group, or, if the distant left-field stamping ground was a sticking point, he said he might even consider cutting a hole in the screen.

Naturally, there are a lot of Mountain West Conference left fielders who wish the Rebels' coach wouldn't be quite so accommodating.