Columnist Ron Kantowski: UNLV, T&M partnership much needed

Thursday, June 13, 2002 | 9:56 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.

It looks like the UNLV athletic department and the Thomas & Mack Center are trying to kiss and make up. Again.

Rebels A.D. John Robinson has announced that the athletic department and the T&M/Sam Boyd Stadium ticket offices will merge, a sign the two Maryland Parkway behemoths are trudging toward a common ground.

That's good, because in the past they've been farther apart than David Letterman's front teeth.

The alliance between the entities, which should be a given, has been strained by years of misunderstanding and greed. Guys on each side have told me so, at least over beers.

The origin of discord can be traced to the genesis of the arena itself. The Thomas & Mack Center was/is The House That Tark Built. As such, athletic department personnel believe it is the UNLV basketball team and to a lesser extent, the other Rebels sports programs, that should reap the lion's share of the benefits it generates. Not to mention being given first priority on the building's busy schedule.

Hey, I can sympathize. When they built the Dean E. Smith Center at North Carolina, the man for whom it is named could schedule basketball practice, safe in the knowledge that the Tar Heels would not have to cut short work on their free throws because 'N Sync was in town.

Next to the outrageous price of a table dance, Bill Bayno's chief complaint during his tenure as UNLV basketball coach was that the Rebels had difficulty getting on their home floor, because there was always a rodeo or a hockey game or a concert occupying it. That's one of the few things that he and I agreed on.

But that's not to say that longtime arena director Pat Christenson and predecessor Dennis Finfrock, who transformed the Mack from a white elephant into a cash cow, are to blame for the tenuous relationship. After all, it was their savvy in luring the Grateful Dead and other headliners to the UNLV campus (and the influx of cash they provided) that propped up the basketball and football programs during the Rollie Massimino/Jim Strong/Jeff Horton era.

Christenson and his staff were paid handsomely -- some say too handsomely -- but at least their efforts made the athletic program self-sufficient.

Over the long term, the accessibility of the sports facilities was a minor sticking point compared to how the profits were divvied up. Christenson and his staff were doing most of the work, yet athletic director Charlie Cavagnaro and his coaches were the ones holding out their hands.

But it has been nearly a year since Christenson resigned to become president of Las Vegas Events, and six months since Cavagnaro stopped playing golf on UNLV's nickel.

Thus, a new sense of detente seems to be bridging the gap between the athletic department and the sports arenas as Robinson and Daren Libonati, Christenson's understudy and the man now in charge on an interim basis, seem to be getting on fine.

Of course, many of the contracts and arrangements that will determine the chances for long-term harmony between the arenas and the athletic department probably won't be determined until the new man is in place, which, sources said, could be any day now.

If it's Libonati, then the peace accord already may be in place. If it's not Libonati, then somebody in a leadership position needs to determine what the Mack's role in relationship to the athletic program is going to be and get everybody on the same page.