Columnist Ron Kantowski: At least local kids don’t call collect

Tuesday, May 13, 2003 | 8:56 a.m.

Ron Kantowski is a Las Vegas Sun sports writer. Reach him at ron@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4088.

Intermittently, I have used this space to implore UNLV to recruit more local athletes, especially in the non-revenue sports, principally because it's cheaper to recruit them and it helps build goodwill between the university and the community.

Besides, if you're going to lose anyway, why not do it with local kids?

But this weekend, the best argument yet for recruiting local kids emerged from a university phone bill that was higher than the Gross National Product:

When they phone home, it's not a toll call.

Apparently, somebody forgot to tell UNLV students and athletes to dial 10-10-220 before they give the operator the not-so-secret athletic department phone code. Mike Piazza wouldn't have approved and neither, apparently, does university president Carol Harter.

By the time UNLV is done dialing "8" to NCAA headquarters in Indianapolis to try to explain this one, it would appear, at least, that more suspensions of Rebels athletes are coming.

I suppose it will be interesting to see how many athletes were calling Parts Unknown on the company credit card. But what I really want to know -- as I'm sure Harter does -- is how the phone card code became more common knowledge than the location of the next off-campus kegger.

If she doesn't get to the bottom of this soon, maybe UNLV will even drop "Win With the Rebels" as the official school fight song for something a little more appropriate and/or recognizable.

I was thinking of "Operator" by the late Jim Croce, or perhaps Electric Light Orchestra's "Telephone Line."

Listed No. 1 on its "special interest" story ideas were "The Thompson Twins (Christian and Catrina of Las Vegas), who now play professional tennis and are going to Notre Dame next year."

While it was probably an honest mistake, it only shows that the line we referenced is getting finer all the time.

But the fourth-most popular name for a boat in 2002 was "Bite Me" which means one of two things: A lot of orthodontists have become sailors or boat owners finally have come to the conclusion that getting one in the water is more trouble than it's worth.

But these were more than ceremonial laps. Using a car equipped with a hand-controlled clutch and throttle, Zanardi got up to 195 mph.

Remarkably, Zanardi's speed would have put him fifth on the grid for the regular scheduled CART race that followed his emotional exhibition laps.

"Now they (fans) know if I really wanted, I could do it again," said Zanardi, one of the most popular drivers in CART history. "Maybe not at this level, but a lower level."

One rumor already making the rounds -- and one that his wife Daniella already has tried to quash -- is that Zanardi may be considering driving in next year's 24 Hours of Daytona, in which endurance, and not all-out speed, is the primary consideration.