Thursday, Oct. 30, 2003 | 10:26 a.m.
Ron Kantowski is a Las Vegas Sun sports writer. Reach him at [email protected] or (702) 259-4088.
Anybody who spent Saturday afternoon roaming the stands at Sam Boyd Stadium may conclude that UNLV has as many problems off the field as it does on it.
Ernie Banks wouldn't have survived until halftime at the Not-So-Friendly Confines.
Although I didn't see any fists flying in the Everlast section -- the end zone seats, where visiting fans sit perilously close to a throng of UNLV counterparts hopped up on Budweiser and testosterone -- that was only because the BYU faithful lead the Mountain West in turning the other cheek.
It had to be the first time I heard Joseph Smith's name taken in vain more often than Jesus Christ's. It made Convicts vs. Catholics, which is what they call it when Miami and Notre Dame get together, look like an ice cream social.
The second quarter was only half over when I saw the first potty-mouth being led away in handcuffs. And this was when UNLV led, 13-0.
It was such a contrast to last Tuesday night, where more than 7,000 hockey fans jammed into the Orleans Arena for the Las Vegas Wranglers' debut. Consuming mass quantities of alcohol is mandatory, not optional, at hockey games, yet Wranglers fans seemed more interested in enjoying the action rather than creating it.
Granted, BYU, Utah and Hawaii travel better than the Bakersfield Condors. But when was the last time you heard of the Attica Prison Riot being reenacted at a Big Ten or Southeastern Conference game, where tens of thousands of fans wearing different colored sweatshirts intermingle?
The fights and name-calling aren't the only problems at Sam Boyd.
The dirt parking lots are brutal, and in the rare instances when the Rebels are still in the game late in the fourth quarter and their fair-weather fans haven't left early, getting out of them is an adventure. After the BYU game, little-used Weisner Road, accessible via Sunset Road and used by savvy fans as a secret artery in and out of Sam Boyd, looked like the Spaghetti Bowl interchange on Friday afternoon.
A couple of years ago, TV sets were installed above the concession stands, which at least made the long wait for a hot dog bearable. But on Saturday, very few of the monitors were tuned to the game. Instead, they were showing nonstop commercials for the upcoming bull riders show at the Thomas & Mack Center.
And then there were the hot dogs themselves. The one I got was longer than its bun, which is usually good, but was dark brown in color, which usually isn't. It didn't taste like a hot dog, either. I was told it was some new taste treat called a "Burger Pipe." It tasted more like a lead pipe.
The scoreboard replay screen is great for catching up on what you missed when the campus cops are in your section, breaking up a fight. However, Redd Vision is now used mostly to show plays on which the Rebels gain a few yards and the bare midriffs of co-eds trying to be discovered.
The way the Rebels have been playing, fans have seen a lot more belly buttons than touchdowns. By the time Colorado State comes to town, they might have to scramble the signal.
Between the inconveniences at the stadium Saturday and the mess at the T&M Friday, where construction of a new dormitory on part of the parking lot forced fans attending the Kings-Lakers game to take shuttle buses from auxiliary parking at McCarran Airport, it was not a very good week to be Daren Libonati, who runs Sam Boyd and the T&M, or Mike Hamrick, who as UNLV athletic director usually gets blamed for what goes wrong there.
In Libonati's defense, if Rebels fans would police themselves, he wouldn't have to spend so much of time and resources doing it for them. Maybe some of those Metro officers on security detail could be used to direct traffic afterward.
And if all those idiots hadn't thrown all those plastic bottles of beer onto the field last year, concession workers wouldn't have to take the time to twist open the bottles and pour their contents into paper cups, which makes the lines on the concourse even longer. It took me the entire halftime and three minutes of the third quarter to get a hot dog -- er, Burger Pipe.
Part of the problem with going to a game at UNLV is that the left hand doesn't always know what the right is doing.
Because Libonati reports to UNLV president Carol Harter and not Hamrick, and because the football stadium and basketball arena are looked at as revenue producers rather than homes of the Rebels, there will be times when Libonati and Hamrick won't be on the same page, at least not if both are doing their jobs.
I was never a big Bill Bayno fan, but I could understand his beef about not getting to shoot free throws in the T&M the night before the Utah game because "Disney on Ice" had dibs.
But if UNLV had an 80,000-seat football stadium and could win enough games to fill it, then Libonati wouldn't have to be a concert promoter to make the arenas self-sufficient.
It's a unique arrangement in college athletics, and maybe it works from a bottom-line financial standpoint for UNLV.
But could you imagine the fallout had Rick Pitino become the Rebels' coach, only to learn he'd have to practice at the North Gym because a guy in a Mickey Mouse suit had his arena?
At some point, the sports facilities and the athletic department have to be brought under the same umbrella. And when that happens, Hamrick should be the guy holding the handle.
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