Columnist Ron Kantowski: UNLV football is poorest in rich year of bad stories

Wednesday, Dec. 29, 2004 | 9:17 a.m.

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

This is the time of the year when people in my profession gain even more weight than usual and, because there's nothing else going on besides UNLV vs. Texas-Pan American basketball games, write boring stories recapping the Top 10 sports stories of the year.

Where's the fun in that?

The way I see it, 300-game winners and NASCAR champions receive too much publicity the way it is. And being one who can appreciate the wretched futility of the '62 Mets or relate to Charles Dimry being torched for five touchdown receptions by Jerry Rice on Monday Night Football, I've always found life's losers more interesting than guys who win.

This is what I get for being a Cubs fan. While most people admire Bobby Thomson for the shot heard 'round the world, I am infinitely more fascinated by Ralph Branca, the guy who served it up.

So I propose we begin a new tradition. Rather than rehash the best local sports stories of the year, whaddya' say we use this space to look back at some of the worst ones, the Bottom 10 Sports Stories of the Year, if you will.

At least this is one year-end list where I won't have to apologize for leaving anyone out.

10. Gaughan loses his wheels

What was supposed to be the ride of a lifetime on NASCAR's Nextel Cup circuit lasted just one season for Las Vegan Brendan Gaughan, who was fired as driver of the No. 77 Penske-Jasper Racing Kodak Dodge this month.

Gaughan jumped directly from the Craftsman Truck Series into NASCAR's big time but it proved to be a quantum leap, as he posted just one top five finish and three top 10s. He was replaced at the end of the season by a guy named Travis Kvapil, who I believe spent the last year selling hardware at the True Value in Mount Pilot.

9. 51s lose 76

To show how mediocre our triple-A baseball team was this year, it won only 67 games, its lowest total since beginning an affiliation with the Los Angeles Dodgers four years ago, yet exceeded the expectations of manager Terry Kennedy.

"I look back, and we won 67 games. I was pleased," Kennedy said after the Aliens were through missing the cutoff man. "At the beginning and the way our inconsistencies were, I didn't think we were going to win that many." Nice try, Terry. You almost had us believing it ourselves until the Dodgers fired you in September.

8. Frank Haege loses his shirt

During a home game against Arizona in March, Gladiators coach Frank Haege was feeling so sorry for the Arena Football League officials that he offered them the shirt off his back. Only he ripped it off and slammed it to the Thomas & Mack throw rug in frustration after what he thought was a bad no-call. It was Shirts vs. Skins, and the Skins lost. "I didn't like it," said team owner Jim Ferraro, who cited Haege's lack of professionalism among the reasons for firing him in July following an 8-8 season. "I'm here to win, I'm not here to screw around." Or, evidently, to pick up dirty clothes left lying around by the coaching staff.

7. Glynn Cyprien flunks out

Despite serving as former UNLV basketball coach Bill Bayno's right-hand man, Glynn Cyprien managed to make a name for himself while serving as Eddie Sutton's chief assistant at Oklahoma State and parlayed that experience into a head coaching opportunity at Louisiana-Lafayette. He was fired despite never losing a game. Or winning one. Cyprien was told to hit the road when it was discovered he did not possess a bachelor's degree from Texas-San Antonio, as listed on his resume. Just as it was listed when he coached here. At least now Cyprien won't have to fib about having a master's from George O'Leary U.

6. Ex-Raider strafes Siegfried & Roy's place

Obviously distraught by being beat out by Sebastian Janikowski, Cole Ford took out his frustrations as any level-headed former NFL kicking specialist would -- by pumping a bunch of shotgun pellets into the home of Las Vegas entertainers Siegfried & Roy. Ford is facing six felony charges of discharging a firearm from a motor vehicle and two felony counts of assault with a deadly weapon. Thankfully, Ford was outside of 30 yards from the home, so his shotgun blasts missed wide to the right and nobody was injured in the incredibly bizarre -- even for Las Vegas -- incident.

5. Widow chips in for LVI

If you don't think the Las Vegas Invitational was lying 5 with its sponsorship ball nestled in the rough between a rock and hard place, consider that were it not for a $5 million gift from a widow in the Bay Area, our long-standing PGA stop might be DOA at the TPC. The donation from Helen Morton, whose late husband was one of the amateur duffers about whom the touring pros constantly grumble, enabled the LVI to prop itself up to where the Michelin Man could further inflate it. The tire company recently signed a two-year extension of the title sponsor contract to which it hastily agreed just before this year's event.

4. Tarnished Spoon quits

The wear and tear of coaching college basketball into his 60s caused Charlie Spoonhour to step down as Rebels coach following a crushing 94-60 defeat to Missouri in the middle of the season. His doctors said he literally was sick and tired, although many observers wondered whether it was his headstrong players, some of whom openly questioned his coaching style, that made him that way. Spoonhour, 54-31 in two-plus seasons here, did not talk to reporters following his decision, as he was on his way to Cardinals spring training in Florida, where Rebels star Odartey Blankson could not rip him in the local press.

3. FBI rope-a-dopes Top Rank

Perhaps growing frustrated over failing to make anything stick against the original Teflon Don, boxing promoter King, the FBI decided to make rival promoter Bob Arum's life miserable by raiding his Las Vegas-based Top Rank Inc. headquarters in January. The Feds allegedly were looking for information that could link Arum and Top Rank to fight-fixing bribes, but I think the real reason behind the raid was to keep any more of those Oscar De La Hoya singing CDs from making it onto the shelf at Best Buy.

2. Wranglers sign felon

Hockey tough guys are a dime a dozen, but thankfully most limit their slashing, high-sticking and other random acts of violence and mayhem to the arena. Not so in the case of Billy Tibbetts, a well-traveled 30-year-old forward who was convicted of raping a 15-year-old girl when he was 17, a transgression the Las Vegas Wranglers apparently were willing to overlook when they signed him to a free-agent contract in November. "He's a helluva hockey player and our team felt that we could win hockey games with him in the lineup," Wranglers coach Glen Gulutzan said. Tibbetts received a 10-game suspension for a flagrant cross-check in his first game with the Wranglers, and even with him in the lineup, Las Vegas is just 1-5-2. Tibbetts' totals are no goals, two assists and 86 penalty minutes, and it seems only a matter of time until he's sent back to the Fede ral League to mix it up with Oggy Ogelthorpe.

1. UNLV football fizzles

This was supposed to be the year that UNLV football woke up the echoes, or at least created one. But instead of the 7-4 or 8-3 season that many had envisioned, the Rebels went 2-9 following an 0-4 start that caused venerable 69-year-old coach John Robinson to announce his retirement a year before his contract was up. "No, it was not the breaking point," Robinson said after a 31-21 loss to Utah State of the Dregs of the Earth Conference, "but it may have affected my timing on this announcement a bit." The highlights of Robinson's UNLV tenure were guiding the Rebels to an impressive 31-14 victory over Arkansas in the 2000 Las Vegas Bowl and a stunning 23-5 win at nationally ranked Wisconsin in 2003, achievements that were quickly forgotten amid too many losses to the likes of San Diego State and New Mexico, and a style of play that was about as excit ing as a smoker at the Knights of Columbus.

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