Columnist Ron Kantowski: Hall of Fame at UNLV forevermore Fred’s World

Friday, Feb. 4, 2005 | 10:03 a.m.

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

This year's UNLV Athletic Hall of Fame class includes a Super Bowl champ, an NCAA champ, a Final Four star and the legendary -- at least in the mind of any local sports writer who has ever yearned for a colorful quote -- Fred Dallimore.

I'd say this is one year where UNLV has done a pretty good job of blowing its own horn.

"I know it will be a special evening when we welcome these four into their school's own hall of fame," UNLV athletic director Mike Hamrick said in advance of tonight's induction gala at the MGM Grand Hotel's Studio Ballroom.

And this is coming from a guy who never saw them play and coach, at least not in Rebels uniforms.

I must confess I never saw Warren Schutte pound the links, either, because the UNLV golf team didn't play a lot of home matches and the Golf Channel didn't exist in 1991, when Schutte, who arrived on coach Dwaine Knight's doorstep from South Africa, won the NCAA championship.

His beefy build remindful of a young Jack Nicklaus, Schutte was the first Rebel to win an individual championship in any sport, and he beat two-time defending NCAA titleist Phil Mickelson to do it. While he didn't become a star on the PGA tour like Mickelson, beating him straight-up at Pebble Beach is something nobody can ever take away from him. Not even the NCAA, provided he didn't pose for a sorority calendar or something criminal like that.

I also missed Freddie Banks' best days in Las Vegas as he helped lead UNLV to the 1987 Final Four a few months before I started at the Sun. But I did take his name in vain about a dozen times when he nearly shot my beloved Indiana Hoosiers out of the national semifinals by sinking an NCAA record 10 3-pointers.

Bob Knight remembers him, too, if not by name than at least by his number on the shot chart. To Knight, Banks will always be No. 13 with a circle around it.

"One of my greatest memories as a coach is playing against Nevada-Las Vegas in the NCAA semifinals," Knight told the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal recently. "They shot 36 (actually, it was 35) threes. We only shot four but won the game."

Much like this year's Rebels, Banks never met a 3-point shot he didn't like -- or take. Unlike this year's Rebels, he also made a lot of them -- 229 for his career and 152 during that fabulous 1987 season.

I got to know him a little bit when he played for the Las Vegas Silver Streaks of the short-lived World Basketball League. He used to wear these giant glasses that sort of made him look like Harry Caray, or a mild-mannered superhero on his day off. And he was mild-mannered. Unlike many of the UNLV basketball stalwarts that have followed him, the only chip Banks ever had on his shoulder was made of chocolate.

While I mostly watched Banks from a distance, I think I saw every game that Keenan McCardell played as a Rebel from the press box. And with the exception that he has played in the Pro Bowl and caught two touchdown passes in the Super Bowl -- something I'm still trying to accomplish in Madden 2005 -- we had a lot in common.

Actually, the one thing we had in common is that he survived playing for Jim Strong and I survived covering the football beat when Strong was coach. But that's saying a lot.

McCardell's hands were stickier than a no-pest strip in a service station restroom, but he was not what you would call fleet of foot, which prompted the late pro football draft expert Joel Buchsbaum to say he would never make it in the NFL.

"Guys like McCardell are a dime a dozen," I remember Buchsbaum telling me on the eve of the draft.

I think what he meant to say is he wished he had a dime for every dozen receptions McCardell would make as a pro. At 34 and in the twilight of his career with the Chargers, he's 16th on the all-time NFL receiving list and still is catching most everything thrown his way.

Last but not least (although I'm not sure his former athletic director Jim Weaver would agree), it's also time to raise a glass to Fred Dallimore, who won 794 games in 23 seasons as UNLV baseball coach from 1974-96. He still ranks 31st on the NCAA all-time victory list as his teams averaged a whopping 34.5 wins per season en route to seven NCAA tournament appearances. The Rebels won 40 games eight times under Freddie D's watch, including a program-record 53 in 1980.

But perhaps his greatest legacy is that whenever local sports writers gather for 12-ounce elbow curls, Dallimore's name almost always comes up by the second round, er, repetition.

In most college towns, guys in the sports department draw straws to see who gets stuck covering the baseball team. At the Sun, we used to arm wrestle for the honor.

That's because win or lose -- especially lose -- Dallimore told it like it was.

If an outfielder missed the cutoff man, Fred let him have it. If an umpire blew a call, Fred let him have it. If Dallimore stayed with his starting pitcher too long, Fred let himself have it. And if you asked a dumb question, Fred let you have it.

But if you showed even the smallest interest in his program, he never forgot it.

Toward the end of his reign, it had been a couple of years since I had gotten out to Barnson Field (this was before Dallimore raised the capital to build Wilson Stadium around it) to check on the Hustlin' Rebels, as Fred liked to call his guys.

He was about ready to climb aboard his trusty tractor to drag the infield or pull dandelions in the outfield or change a light bulb in the press box or perform one of the myriad other tasks he did as caretaker of the baseball program, when he spotted me coming down the bleachers to shake his hand.

He immediately dropped to his knees and bowed before me, raising his arms over his head like Wayne and Garth when Aerosmith made a guest appearance on "Wayne's World."

It was the first and last time I was "shalomed" by a coach I had covered. So on the day UNLV prepares to honor its own, let me be first to respond in kind and say a word for my colleagues in the local media.

It was really we who weren't worthy, Fred.

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