Columnist Ron Kantowski: His impact on UNLV was unmistakable

Friday, Nov. 19, 2004 | 10:04 a.m.

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

And so this is it. One more meaningless football game to cap a career that was built upon so many meaningful ones.

If he were one of those guys consumed by wins and losses, John Robinson probably would consider his tenure at UNLV a smudge on a brilliant coaching record. He had only one winning season in six. Take away November of 2000, when the Rebels won three close games to become Las Vegas-bowl eligible and then turned the Razorbacks of Arkansas into that other white meat, and his on-the-field performance isn't all that much better than the three guys who preceded him.

When they get around to inducting Robinson into the College Football Hall of Fame, it isn't going to be one of those Carlton Fisk deals, where they can't decide which bronze hat to cast on his head.

And yet, he leaves the program in so much better shape than how he found it.

Robinson's presence gave UNLV an air of legitimacy it has never had, not even when Ron Meyer and Tony Knap were beating up on the likes of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Western Illinois and Harvey Hyde was winning California Bowls with ineligible players.

Before Robinson's arrival, Sam Boyd Stadium resembled a high school stadium on the wrong side of town. Now, like Anna Nicole Smith, it has been redone from top to bottom with a multilevel press box tower and synthetic field turf.

Remember the old days, when the closest thing UNLV had to a luxury box was a little-used restroom on the visitors' side of the field? Now, just about every hotel-casino has a place to entertain its invited football guests.

Robinson also oversaw the renovation of Rebel Park, the palm tree-lined UNLV football training facility that with its wrought-iron gates and desert landscaping looks more like the entrance to one of Las Vegas' upscale neighborhoods than a place where you practice football.

TV appearances and talented recruits, name recognition and respect ... when John Robinson finally leaves Las Vegas, nobody will have to spray paint his name on the wall of the Lied Athletic Complex to know he was here.

And let's not forget he also served as UNLV's athletic director for 17 months before stepping down in May 2003 when the dual role became too big a burden.

Besides the money he raised, Robinson's crowning achievement as AD was making the UNLV women's teams feel like an important part of the athletic program rather than a redundant evil. There were times when I thought Robinson might put on a sandwich board with Linda Frohlich's picture and hand out free Lady Rebels tickets on the corner of Tropicana and Maryland Parkway, he was that committed to the women.

In fact, it could be argued that when wearing both hats got to be too much, he quit the wrong job.

Nothing against new AD Mike Hamrick, but if I drove a Lexus and wanted to write a check to somebody in the athletic department, I'd probably be more inclined to pay it to the order of somebody who beat Notre Dame and Ohio State while coaching at Southern Cal, rather than somebody who watched East Carolina beat UAB and Southern Miss from a luxury box.

If UNLV was smart, it would talk Robinson out of moving to Phoenix, where his grandkids are, and entice him into staying on as some sort of fund-raising consultant in Las Vegas, where all the scholarship donor money is.

Since late September, when he announced following an 0-4 start that he would be stepping down at the end of this season, Robinson has spent little time reflecting on what he has accomplished as a football coach, alluding only to some of the things he would like to do when he's through being one.

So although he would have made a fine ambassador for UNLV football, that probably isn't going to happen.

When all is said and done or whenever fans gather to talk about the college football playoffs, whichever comes first, it may turn out that UNLV is only the answer to a trivia question in the context of Robinson's career. Sort of like Colorado State was to Earle Bruce or the Washington Federals, Louisville, Oklahoma and Florida Atlantic were to Howard Schnellenberger.

Instead of going out on top, like many had envisioned, Robinson will be going out on the bottom of the Mountain West standings, which nobody could have envisioned considering that this year's UNLV team was supposed to be his best.

Oh, there was the tough schedule that had the Rebels traveling to Tennessee and Wisconsin to begin the season, in addition to the injuries and bad bounces that seem to plague every team that doesn't live up to expectations. But long before fate intervened, it should have been apparent that Robinson wasn't the savior of the program some made him out to be. He tried to play USC football with UNLV players and it didn't work.

At least not in the long run.

But perhaps there will come a time, when the sun dips behind Superstition Mountain and the wine is tasting as sweet as a road win at BYU, when Robinson will recall the perfect 54-yard touchdown spiral that Jason Thomas threw to Troy Mason against the Hogs on a chilly December night in Las Vegas. And then maybe, just maybe, he'll remember how neat it was to turn UNLV into a football school, if only for a little while.