Columnist Ron Kantowski: With Majerus, it’s always hoots first, then hollers

Friday, Dec. 17, 2004 | 10:16 a.m.

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

He was at his self-deprecating best while officially accepting an offer to coach the USC basketball team beginning next year and had the Los Angeles media eating out of his hand Wednesday.

Which, given Rick Majerus' weight problem, is probably better than the other way around.

But once the games start, the love affair between the L.A. press and Majerus probably will last as long as a powdered donut on his breakfast plate. One of those little powdered donuts that come six to a pack.

And by then, if history is any indication, some of his players will be perusing the college basketball classifieds to see who might be in the market for an overworked power forward or an exhausted point guard.

It's ironic that one of the reasons SC cited in firing Henry Bibby is that he was too tough on his players, then it went out and dangled a carrot -- or maybe a pork chop -- in front of Majerus. Since he became coach at Utah in 1989, an average of three players per season quit the Utes' program. Just a little more than a third of his 69 recruits made it to their senior seasons, according to the Deseret Morning News.

No doubt, a few of those early departures had something to do with playing time or Salt Lake City rolling up its sidewalks at 7 p.m. Of course, that's something Majerus' players would have had to take my word for, because at 7 p.m. they were usually still practicing. Heck, even if there was such a thing as "last call" in Salt Lake City, they would have still been practicing when the bars -- er, bar -- closed on most nights.

Majerus, in addition to being a great coach, student of the game and a witty guy when the cameras are rolling, is also a perfectionist who drives his players hard. And he admits it. "I am what I am," Majerus said during his stand-up routine Wednesday. "Am I a demanding coach? I work for demanding bosses."

His demanding boss at Utah, according to insiders, would have replaced Majerus years ago if the guy didn't have this incurable habit of winning basketball games. Utes athletic director Chris Hill finally got enough ammunition to hasten Majerus' departure when Lance Allred, one of his former players, charged the coach with verbal abuse related to Allred's hearing impairment. (Majerus was cleared in a university investigation.)

Majerus' decision to resign at Utah last January was made public in a brief news release that cited his and his mother's health. There was no news conference. No questions were asked, and none were answered.

Regardless of how many buzzer-beating baskets Keith Van (at the) Horn made, no matter how many times Andre Miller broke down the Arizona or North Carolina defense, there are no plans to rename Huntsman Center in Majerus' honor.

He might be -- heck, he probably is -- a coaching genius. But it was obvious that Majerus had worn out his welcome in Utah. It was a lot like Indiana, only with an XXXL sweater.

"Rick Majerus announces end of his Utah career," read the headline on the school's official news release, as if it knew those health problems -- not that they weren't real -- were what allowed Utah and its basketball coach to part semi-amicably so he could pursue employment elsewhere.

The columnists up there were a little less subtle. "Time for Majerus to go," read a headline in the Deseret News the next day.

As one who only covered Majerus from a distance, I only had to dodge flying Gatorade during his infamous courtside tantrums and then laughed, like the rest of the out-of-town media, at his one-liners afterward as the Salt Lake beat guys rolled their eyes.

The scouting report on Majerus is that he's a hoot -- as long as you don't have to interact with him every day. And it's not just his hometown reporters and players who find him boorish. One of his former assistants told me the year he spent under Majerus was longer than Mike Krzyzewski's bench.

Majerus was one of those guys who was always harping about the evils of Las Vegas, then would send his team home early on Super Bowl weekend so he could watch the game and party with his pals in the local media.

He also had a way of linking his name to every job opening even though he wasn't interested in any of them. This happened at UNLV three times, the last in 2001 when he withdrew his name from consideration on the very day he was supposed to interview for the job. Which just so happened to be opening day of the Mountain West Conference tournament at the Thomas & Mack Center.

Ah yes, the Mountain West tournament. Tired of being eliminated by the host Rebels, Majerus kept complaining about UNLV's home-court advantage until the MWC kowtowed and moved the tournament to Denver, where it played to a mostly empty arena, a handful of disgruntled sports writers and a couple of dozen Wyoming fans who made a wrong turn on their way to the Coors brewery tour in Golden.

I remember shivering outside the Pepsi Center after a late game last March, waiting for a shuttle bus that had stopped running and a taxi that never came. By the time I finally got back to my room, every restaurant in downtown Denver was closed and room service wasn't answering.

Too bad Rick Majerus wasn't there, I thought, and had to go to bed hungry like I did. If that had happened, they'd probably be moving the tournament back to Las Vegas where it belongs.