Columnist Ron Kantowski: On how readers with a worthy tale to tell can help him solve his Las Vegas Bowl problem

Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2005 | 9:59 a.m.

Ron Kantowski's column appears on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Reach him at ron@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4088.

There's a retired sports writer in town named Ed Vovsi whose second novel begins with a sports writer being discovered spread-eagle, with a bullet in his head, on the 50-yard line at Sam Boyd Stadium the morning after the Las Vegas Bowl.

Tina Kunzer-Murphy exacts revenge!

I already know who did it in this whodunit.

To paraphrase satirist Bill Maher, I kid the Las Vegas Bowl executive director. I actually like the game, and I really don't think she'll have to resort to bake sales and car washes to keep it going, which is what I wrote a few months ago.

She will never let me forget writing that, and it's become the source of a running joke between us.

When she needled me at the Las Vegas Bowl ticket drive luncheon in October, I told her I didn't want to be responsible for the game going under. So I took a $10 bill out of my wallet and purchased one general admission seat in the end zone.

She told me she was going to frame my sawbuck or to shove it where the Sun Bowl doesn't shine, I don't remember which. Anyway, I countered by saying I expected her to hand deliver the ticket. I figured that's the least she could do, considering I had just given her the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of witnessing a sports writer actually pay for something.

Of course, she wound up mailing it to me. With postage due.

Like TKM's $10 bill, I thought I would just frame the ticket or put it somewhere for posterity's sake, such as under my Katie Hnida Las Vegas Bowl scrapbook. But then she succeeded in landing Brigham Young, which has tens of thousands of fans in Southern Nevada, and Cal of the Pac-10, which will bring its fans with it.

And just like that, the game sold out.

That's sold out as in every seat spoken for. Amazing. In the old days when you wanted to see pigs fly around the Las Vegas Bowl, you had to invite Arkansas to the game.

So now I have a problem. What to do with my ticket that I really had no intention of using, but now apparently is worth something due to the law of supply and demand?

At first I thought I would just leave it at Will Call, in case Elvis Presley might show, like Jerry Glanville used to do when he coached the Oilers. But then I figured some Elvis impersonator would claim it and get sequins in the 7-Up of the BYU fans.

I thought about just leaving it in my briefcase and becoming an official no-show (too easy), scalping it (too risky) or giving it to the first coed who showed up at the ticket window without one (way too risky after 14 years of marriage).

So I have decided to take a page out of the UNLV football team's book every time it sets foot inside the Red Zone. I will just give it away.

Sort of.

I've determined that the ticket should go to the loser (who else would go to a meaningless football game by himself?) who e-mails me with the best reason, in a sentence or two, why he should get it. Be clever. Be brief. Be the ball (if your name is Danny Noonan).

But if you don't win, please don't put a bullet between my eyes and drag my lifeless form to the 50-yard line the day after the game.

I don't want to give Tina Kunzer-Murphy an alibi.

Ron Kantowski can be reached at 259-4088 or at ron@lasvegassun.com.