Columnist Dean Juipe: From Wolf Pack blue to just plain blue

Dean Juipe

Monday, March 29, 2004 | 9:16 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.

RENO -- It was a heck of a lot easier getting a seat at the Little Waldorf Saloon on Sunday than it had been Friday afternoon.

On Friday, each of the 300 or so chairs in the Little Waldorf was occupied by 3 p.m. in spite of the fact the Nevada-Reno vs. Georgia Tech NCAA tournament game was still four hours away. And once in those chairs the early arrivals and those who would later stand and crowd around them talked insatiably at the very top of their voices, pausing only to slug down the $1 Coors Light specials or to check on the local TV crew doing remote shoots near the front door.

As bartenders worked at breakneck speeds to restock and distribute the alcohol, patrons worked on breaking the sound barrier and their own personal consumption records.

Everyone had or was part of a buzz.

"It was wild in here last weekend and this will be more of the same," predicted the feverishly working young man behind the bar that sits across from the Lawlor Events Center on Virginia Street and serves as the de facto hub of the UNR campus.

The Wolf Pack was in the Sweet 16 and Reno residents weren't quite sure how to behave.

So they threw a party, even if one of the parties was advertised as alcohol-free at the UNR student union.

The Reno Hilton bathed itself in a blue hue; the Tri Delta sorority hung a 15-foot banner from its house; the Peppermill waitresses shelved their usual black and red outfits for ones that were blue; Freddie's Roost & Sports Bar converted its reception area into what it called Wolf Pack Central; Ed's Doghouse down the road ordered a couple of extra kegs and the good folks at the Little Waldorf went bananas.

Northern Nevada had the time of its life, at least until the closing seconds of Friday's game when it became apparent the home team's improbable run through the NCAA tournament was over.

In the sports book at the Silver Legacy Casino downtown, there was not a single sound -- not a peep -- as Georgia Tech's 72-67 victory against the Wolves in St. Louis became official. Whether distraught or dazed, the 100 spectators in the facility who had helped bet down the Wolf Pack from 100-1 to 30-1 to 15-1 to win the NCAA tournament made no noise whatsoever as the clock struck zero.

UNR was out of the tournament and life was returning to normal. Around 400 diehard fans would greet the Wolf Pack at the airport on Saturday, but by the resumption of play in the tournament later that day and then again Sunday it was business as usual in the city's sports books and bars.

Truth is, a quick tour of the downtown hotels and books during the UNR vs. Georgia Tech game revealed a shortage of biased observers.

Fitzgerald's didn't even appear to have the game on; Circus Circus pacified its customers by projecting the game on a screen in a small lounge; the remote book at Harrah's was very quiet and mostly empty; the Cal Neva -- "Reno's No. 1 Sports Book" it says on the marquee -- almost lived up to its reputation, as its crowd was at least somewhat lively; and in the lounge bar at the Silver Legacy the keyboardist played without pause, the game available on overhead screens but with the volume turned off.

Las Vegas, some 450 miles to the south, needn't worry about Reno making advances when it comes to courting tourists intent on March Madness. The huge books here and the thousands of bettors, drinkers and fans they lure during the NCAA tournament far overshadow anything of the like in the Biggest Little City.

Yet there remains a rivalry of sorts between the clans.

"Most of us in the Vegas area truly hate the Wolf Pack," wrote John Nieznanski of Boulder City in a letter published in Friday's Reno Gazette-Journal. "But everyone I know is rooting for you."

That fellowship isn't always mutual, as the proprietor of a souvenir shop in downtown Reno inexplicably offset his "Run With the Pack" sweatshirt with a cap reading "F UNLV."

Renoites were tickled to still be playing in a tournament that didn't see fit to invite the Rebels.

But those same Renoites and their Northern Nevada neighbors were ready to be tickled, no matter what.

"This is the most awesome thing," said bartender T.J. Montoya at Joe's Tavern & Casino in Hawthorne, where her presence as well as Hawthorne's proximity to Reno had her regulars mixing basketball among their many varied conversations.

She not only made sure there was a sufficient interest level in UNR vs. Georgia Tech, she was able to add a reporter's touch.

"I just got off the phone with my daughter," she said, referring to UNR senior cheerleader (and captain) Temple Lyle, who was in St. Louis with the team. "Just think, this little girl from Hawthorne gets to cheer at the NCAA tournament.

"She said, 'Mom, it's unbelievable. You don't know how excited I am.' "

Oh, yes, Montoya -- who claims to have taken 16,000 photographs of the UNR cheerleaders -- knew exactly how her daughter felt.

"Channel 8 (in Reno) had her on a TV interview and Temple looked so beautiful," Montoya said. "She's Mineral County's most awesome cheerleader and for this to be the end of her cheerleading career is just so wonderful."

That career came to a conclusion Friday instead of Sunday or at the Final Four this weekend in San Antonio because the Wolf Pack had its second poorest shooting game of the season in bowing to Georgia Tech.

Hitting only 32 percent of its field goals, UNR squandered a 5-point halftime lead and exited the tournament after posting earlier wins against Michigan State and Gonzaga. The 5-point loss also cost UNR bettors who had ridden the team's eight-game winning streak against the spread to a small satchel of riches.

"Everyone's betting on Reno," said the sole worker behind the counter at the Leroy's Sports Book outlet within the El Capitan Casino in Hawthorne, although the number moved only from Georgia Tech minus 4 1/2 to Tech minus 4.

Of course bettors and fans alike could have had valid reason to suspect UNR was at its tournament limit, as a No. 10 seed has never reached the Final Four. Nonetheless, Renoites were talking with their hearts -- a columnist in the Gazette-Journal actually predicted the Wolf Pack would win the national championship -- instead of their heads.

A proposition bet on the UNR vs. Georgia Tech game did pay off for some local zealots when Reno's Kirk Snyder finished with 21 points and Tech's B.J. Elder had none after playing only three minutes due to an injured left ankle. The bet -- which of the two standouts would score the most points? -- proved to be the only slam dunk of the night for the Wolves and their supporters.

Yet UNR went 25-9 for its best season ever, defeating UNLV and Kansas during the regular season and winning the Western Athletic Conference tournament.

WAC members expressed their thanks in a full-page ad in Friday's Gazette-Journal, one of nine such ads in the paper that day as it capitalized on the city's sentiment with a 28-page special section. The WAC ad was funded in part by the $4 million or so that Nevada-Reno had earned for it by advancing three rounds into the NCAA tournament.

UNR had to share its tournament earnings with its WAC brethren, but it does receive an unspecified bonus from the league office for its largesse.

"We have been benefitting from the success of the other WAC basketball programs (and) now we are contributing to that," outgoing UNR athletic director Chris Ault said of the policy of splitting postseason revenues, as is also done at the national level with 326 Division-I schools splitting $100 million that is largely derived from the $6 billion CBS is paying to air the tournament games.

UNR, of course, can use the extra money, as it fields 19 sports programs with its annual $12.2 million budget.

Men's basketball head coach Trent Johnson gets a good portion of that money, as his $654,000, five-year contract is one year away from expiring and has Ault and incoming athletic director Cary Groth concerned that it will take more to keep him. Johnson has denied interest in another job thus far, but it is known that Utah has some interest in him, and Ault -- who is minding the fort until Groth formally takes over April 16 -- has already broached the subject of an extension with the popular coach.

Johnson has certainly exceeded expectations in Reno and his teams have improved every year, from 9-20 in 1999-2000 to 10-18, 17-13, 18-14 and now 25-9. This season's appearance in the NCAA tournament was only the third for the school and its first since 1985.

"In actuality, I think we never thought we could get here," UNR senior Sean Paul told Gazette-Journal workhorse Steve Sneddon while the Wolves were in St. Louis. "We didn't know if we could win those games. It feels so surreal."

It felt surreal in Reno and its outlying areas as well, where only the 30 or so protesters at Lawrence Colwell's execution Friday night in Carson City missed the game against Georgia Tech. Colwell, convicted of murdering a man in Las Vegas in 1994, went quietly and without incident in the prison's death chamber.

He was pronounced dead about the same time the Wolf Pack's season came to an end.

But the city gained a little prestige and had some fun following the Pack, as writers from the New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times have filed feature stories on the Reno area just in the past couple of weeks. The Reno-Sparks Convention & Visitors Authority also spent $37,150 on TV ads that ran in selected West Coast cities during the telecast of the UNR-Georgia Tech game.

Those who could made a buck on UNR's success.

Those who couldn't or were indifferent to it went about doing what they do best.

"Welcome ABC Bowlers" reads a permanent banner-like sign downtown, the city's huge bowling center and its endless array of keglers having much greater staying power and impact than a basketball tournament two time zones away.

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