Columnist Steve Guiremand: Mail call delivers a pointed message

Steve Guiremand

Friday, Oct. 15, 2004 | 11:11 a.m.

Steve Guiremand covers college football for the Sun. He can be reached at steveg@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-2324.

We occasionally get letters about columns we write. But never has the e-mail flowed like after last week's column.

Talk about opening the floodgates. People everywhere from El Paso to Salt Lake City to Provo bombarded us for comments on everything from BYU's still being the marquee Mountain West Conference program in football (and UNLV in basketball) to alleged racial comments made about the town of El Paso.

We decided to select one letter on each topic and follow them with our comments. Here goes:

Dear Las Vegas Sun,

I recently had the misfortune of reading Mr. Steve Guiremand's column, dated Oct. 8, 2004.

In that column, Mr. Guiremand, in response to UTEP athletic director Bob Stull's comments comparing the football attendance at UTEP and UNLV, made the following comment: "If you haven't been to El Paso -- and consider yourself lucky -- just picture East L.A. in the middle of a desert."

So I wondered, what was the similarity that Mr. Guiremand sees, and apparently dislikes, between East L.A. and El Paso? Could it be the two communities have similar weather? That's unlikely. As Mr. Guiremand pointed out, El Paso is in a desert, and East L.A. is not. Could it be the two communities have similar socioeconomic compositions? I suppose that's possible, but there are a lot of communities he could have compared El Paso to. Why did he choose East L.A.?

Oh, I get it. Right. Describing El Paso as "East L.A. in the middle of the desert," and saying that any visit to El Paso is the result of misfortune, is code for "El Paso is filled with brown people, brown people are icky." Right? I guess racism is alive and well in the Las Vegas Sun's sports department.

And, please, don't insult my intelligence by suggesting that I miscontrued your comments. The words, their meaning, and the underlying beliefs are clear.

I wonder if you even realize that you owe the Hispanic community in El Paso and in Las Vegas an apology? Probably not. Worse, if you actually do issue one, it will likely not be because you're sorry about what you said, but because you got caught.

Your comments were racist and stupid, Mr Guiremand. I can only assume that they are an accurate reflection of you. Rogelico Carrasco

Mr. Carrasco,

I hope I'm not going to insult your intelligence, but I have no idea what the demographics are of El Paso and I didn't about East L.A. until I researched them after getting your letter. In fact, after going to my godmother's funeral on the East L.A.-Monterey Park border last year I would have guessed it was more Asian than Hispanic. I was wrong.

My column intended nothing against the fine people of El Paso or East L.A. --- white, brown or black -- but was in reference to the landscape each city has. As someone who spent hundreds of hours driving the bumper-to-bumper traffic down Washington Boulevard or the Pomona Freeway to work each day, dodging semis and potholes while taking in the scenery of broken down factories and businesses, I can assure you you'll never find East. L.A. on the cover of a Conde Nast travel magazine.

When I informed an El Paso columnist earlier this week about the potholes, he said somebody's car actually got swallowed up in a sinkhole there recently. And I thought that only happened in Florida!

Actually, my first thought was to compare El Paso to Barstow with a river. However, Barstow -- I haven't researched the demographics so I hope I'm not insulting anyone there -- recently went up several notches in my regard when it added an Original Tommy's hamburger stand (double cheese, no onions, extra chili please), a southern California institution.

Several other letter writers from El Paso thought I was too hard on Stull. In fact, I think he would get my vote as athletic director of the year (sorry, Mike Hamrick) for his brilliant hire of Mike Price, easily one of the top 10 coaches in the nation. Wonder if the folks in Tucson are having any second thoughts?

If the Miners can keep Price around for two or three years -- you've got to expect that the NFL and some big-time BCS programs will be more than willing to cough up the $250,000 buyout price -- they'll have a Top 20 team to shout about. The guy is that good.

As for East L.A., one of my fondest memories as the high school sports editor at the old L.A. Herald Examiner was covering the annual Garfield-Roosevelt game at East Los Angeles College each year. No matter what their records -- and combined you usually only needed one hand to add up the wins -- you'd have a turnaway crowd of 30,000 people. And the atmosphere was better than many Mountain West Conference games I've attended.

If I were Las Vegas Bowl executive director Tina Kunzer-Murphy and wanted to sell out Sam Boyd Stadium, I'd bring in that contest as the first game of a doubleheader each year. You wouldn't be able to get a seat ... for the first game, anyway.

Which brings us to ...

Steve,

I had to reply to your article written about Utah being a consolation prize for the Las Vegas Bowl. Do you realize the Utes are coming off a 10-2 season and are undefeated now with a large following in Utah and LV? BYU may have been good in the '80s but like their fans you need to move on. CONSOLATION???? Matt Briggs

Salt Lake City

Matt,

It was definitely a tongue-in-cheek comment. Of course the Las Vegas Bowl would be overjoyed to have the 10th-ranked Utes trickle down to them, although I think most people would rather see them trickle up to the Fiesta Bowl as a BCS buster.

What will be interesting is if the Fiesta Bowl has to choose between an 11-0 Utah -- assuming they don't get an automatic BCS berth with a top six finish in the final BCS standings -- and a 10-1 Cal? Remember, the Pac-10 has a lot of weight with the Fiesta folks.

Barring a rash of injuries or upsets, the Utes at worst will be headed to Memphis for the Liberty Bowl. Pack your parka.

Meanwhile, it looks like the Las Vegas Bowl will be looking at an Oregon-Wyoming thriller.

Steve Guiremand,

UNLV as the marquee basketball program in the Mountain West? Exactly how many WAC/MWC conference championships has UNLV won in basketball? How many WAC/MWC tournament championships has UNLV won that were not played in Vegas? How many NCAA tournament games has UNLV won since it joined the WAC/MWC? How can anyone in his right mind say that UNLV is the flagship hoop program in the MWC? Can you say UTAH!?! Laurence Ellsworth

Dear Laurence,

You make very valid points, of course. If you want to go back to last year you could argue that Air Force is better than UNLV and Utah.

This is all about the national p-e-r-c-e-p-t-i-o-n. Call it the legacy of Tark the Shark, the fireworks show or the 1990 NCAA title, but a lot of kids you run into at high school basketball camps or summer tournaments still regard UNLV as the marquee team of the conference. Maybe they watch the old games on ESPN Classic or their parents grew up rooting for the Rebels when they really were the Runnin' Rebels.

Having lived in southern California in the late '70s and '80s, I can tell you there was no more popular college basketball team at the time in that area than UNLV. Not UCLA. Not USC. Maybe Loyola Marymount for a couple of months during its Cinderella NCAA tournament run behind Bo Kimble after Hank Gathers' death. But that was it.

It's the same kind of perception deal you get if you were to ask someone to name a big-time college football program in the Midwest. No doubt a number of people would answer Notre Dame even though the Fighting Irish have been on hard times. Same with Penn State. And BYU in the Mountain West.

The average fan remembers national titles, not conference titles.

Once around the MWC