Columnist Dean Juipe: Two sides to one very big coach

Dean Juipe

Friday, Feb. 6, 2004 | 10:46 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.

Rick Majerus has always enjoyed a favorable image and reputation.

Maybe it comes with being big. He's a rotund guy with a nice smile and public demeanor, giving him a cuddly glow if you see him from a distance.

Or maybe it comes from having big-time success. Now in his 15th season as head coach at Utah, Majerus has an overall record of 324-95 and has taken 10 of his teams to the NCAA tournament.

His current team, which hosts UNLV in a televised game Monday, is 4-2 in Mountain West Conference play and 16-5 for the season. These Utes are just similar enough to their predecessors to believe they could give Majerus an 11th trip to the NCAA tournament.

Majerus, who turns 56 Feb. 17, has given Utah basketball an assembly line feel. Year in and year out, the Utes are tall and talented and technically sound.

And Majerus never seems to need a season to rebuild or catch his breath. His team will win around 25 games a season and will inevitably contend for conference honors.

Sometimes the Utes even go a little further, and in 1998 they played in the national championship game.

This is a terrific legacy and one that has been pointed out fairly consistently of late in that Majerus has announced his retirement, effective at the end of the 2004 season. Columnists and reporters have used the occasion to produce a succession of positive reviews of Majerus' career.

But there are others who had an entirely different reaction when Majerus announced last month that he would be stepping down due to health concerns. There are others who said good riddance.

While not widely circulated, there is a body of evidence and opinion that Majerus is a bully, that his personality is more boorish than bright and that he is a self-promoter inclined to occasional harangues.

Some say he's Bobby Knight with a belly.

Majerus may not look the part, but many of those who have had to work closely with him simply do not like the man. He's not particularly good with the press and he can be especially rough on his assistant coaches.

He's temperamental and prone to blowing a gasket when things go awry. He's also overly demonstrative and vocal when the heat is on.

Watch Majerus on the sidelines during a game and you wonder how the referees can take it or allow him to roam so freely that he's seemingly always on the court and one step from being in the middle of play. He looks to be berating everyone in sight.

Eventually it's an act that gets old, as is Majerus' penchant for the spotlight when a prestigious job comes open. As we all know, he was more than just casually mentioned when UNLV was looking for someone to replace any of its most recent coaches, from Jerry Tarkanian to Rollie Massimino to Bill Bayno. And Majerus' name was at or near the forefront when vacancies at Notre Dame and UCLA, among others, needed to be addressed.

To his credit, he didn't leave Utah but maybe it was because he was never formally asked.

But he's going to leave after this season, in part, it's quietly said, because of a conflict he's having with the school and its health-care plan.

Will we miss Majerus? Yeah, I think so. But first I need to get this harpoon out of his back.