Columnist Adam Candee: Cinkovich has formula to excel at the next level

Adam Candee

Thursday, Jan. 8, 2004 | 10:49 a.m.

Adam Candee covers high school sports for the Sun. Reach him at (702) 259-4085 or by e-mail at candee@lasvegassun.com.

Kris Cinkovich could have said it was the money and easily could have blamed it on the wear of a season no prep coach should endure.

Instead, he stepped away from the Las Vegas High School football program that he lifted up from the dirt with the same character that he demands of his players in a simple T-shirt motto: No excuses.

When Cinkovich simply says that it's time to move on, you really believe that there are no underlying motives and there is no pretense. That's because the guy has no use for either.

Cinkovich is a clear success at the high school level and he will find similar results in college. When you build a winning foundation on mutual respect, discipline and effort, players see is and there is never a need for bombast or smokescreens.

Players see the outstanding weight room Cinkovich built at Las Vegas High School and they see him in their with them in the offseason training program. They see the countless hours he and his staff put in every year. They see all that, and trusting the man whether he is scolding, comforting or challenging becomes simple.

It's that straight-shooting quality that players buy from Cinkovich, whether it's at Las Vegas High School or at UNLV because they are all young men signing up to be led. It is his way or the highway, and yet he never makes his guys feel that they are without power or respect -- such a rare quality that distinguishes the best of coaches and breeds undying loyalty in players, no matter how hard he rides them.

No excuses, he repeats even in the worst of times.

Without believing that simple phrase, how else could Las Vegas have overcome the loss of its starting quarterback and tailback in the final two weeks of the season and still won playoff games against the two of the toughest teams in its region?

That was a small-time test of the Wildcats' faith in Cinkovich, though, compared to the next few weeks.

Without that trust, how else could the Wildcats hold it together and win another playoff game just days after watching Edward Gomez, one of their most popular and productive players, collapse on the sideline and die soon after?

Thrust into a delicate situation, Cinkovich could have played the mindless machismo card and told his kids to tape up their pain and play through it. Instead, he was one of the first to walk into the counselor's office to talk and to show his emotional teenagers that it was OK to grieve.

No other sport is as driven by the character of its coach in the way that football is. There are no excuses, Cinkovich says. The kids who believe it become part of the family. The kids who don't are free to continue their education without taking part in football. And it works.

That style will play in college too, no doubt, and the Rebels can use a good dose of what Cinkovich offers. Really, Cinkovich needs what UNLV offers him as well -- a new professional challenge and a personal chance to distance himself from a horribly traumatic final season with the Wildcats.

And at 43 years old, if he is leaving the stability of his unofficial position as dean of Las Vegas area prep football coaches for the constant upheaval of college coaching, you can only guess that Cinkovich got a really, really good deal from the Rebels.

Don't expect him to say any of it, though. With Cinkovich, there are no excuses. There is only proof.