Columnist Dean Juipe: Tark again implies he may retire

Dean Juipe

Tuesday, March 5, 2002 | 9:26 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.

I've heard him talking like this before, sounding a little depressed and ruminating on retirement.

I'm always troubled by it, too, because I'd like to see Jerry Tarkanian coach forever or until the day he drops.

But the long grind of a basketball season and the frequent disturbances that inevitably come into play take their toll, and when you catch Tark near the end of a season he's always hinting that it'll be his last.

He was at it again Monday, sometimes speaking on the record and sometimes off of it from his office on the campus of Fresno State University. Go ahead and speculate, he said, because it's better than 50-50 that this season will be his last.

"I'm down," he said. "I thought I had my best team since I was at UNLV but the NCAA totally dismantled it and it's driven me nuts. It's torn me up and I don't know if I can take it anymore."

Tark's Bulldogs are 18-13 overall and will open their portion of the Western Athletic Conference tournament with a Thursday game against Louisiana Tech. Fresno St. was 9-9 in league play this season and is matched against a Tech team that was 14-4.

"Our only chance of going to the NCAA Tournament is to win the conference tournament and we're not playing well enough for that to happen," the always-blunt Tarkanian said. "It's almost impossible to think that we will (win the conference tourney) and that's too bad because at the start of the season I thought we might make it to the Final Four."

Now 71 years old and with a career record of 777-200, Tarkanian enjoys a legendary status in collegiate sports and in Las Vegas in particular. If a poll were taken that asked Southern Nevadans to name their favorite local athlete, entertainer, celebrity or politician of all time, it's very likely that Tark would find his way to the top.

That's little consolation, however, for a man who routinely feels as if he's being targeted by a vigilant and vindicative NCAA.

"They escalated their attack this year," he said of the NCAA's enforcement personnel. "What they did was unprecedented and beyond belief. They penalized us like never before."

Beyond seeing his best player, Tito Maddox, forced off the team, Tarkanian also had to deal with NCAA penalties directed toward Melvin Ely and Chris Sandy.

"We were playing great," Tark said. "We were 7-1 and had beaten Michigan State and Oklahoma State and then they said Ely was ineligble and Sandy would have to sit out 18 games."

He went on to detail the alleged infractions, saying that Ely was busted not because he took a special benefit but because his friend did during a trip to Las Vegas, and that Sandy got popped despite repaying a $660 bill for a correspondence class that his godfather had put on a friend's credit card.

"The NCAA has been harassing us for three years," Tarkanian said. "But this time we really got screwed."

It has been a long haul and the weight of the journey has worn on the man, as was evident by the exasperation that was unmistakably apparent in his voice. But this is no time to quit, I said, attempting to bolster his slumping spirit.

"Thanks," he replied, "but go ahead and write that I'm thinking about getting out."