Tarkanian’s book promises humor, inside look

Thursday, July 7, 2005 | 10:08 a.m.

Jerry Tarkanian promised Wednesday that his third book, scheduled to hit the nation's book stores on Oct. 15, will be his most entertaining effort.

He said he's ready for the pasture. Later, he said he's in the "overtime of life," that Las Vegas is getting too crowded and is a shell of what it used to be. Still ...

"I love Vegas," he said. "Always have. It's a great town. I love the people here. People in this town have always been good to me."

However, these days, waiters will deliver restaurant checks to him.

"Every now and then," said Tarkanian, 74. "In the old days, everything was 'comped.' "

Talking about the book, "Runnin' Rebel," sparked him a day before embarking on a mostly two-month hibernation in San Diego.

"I think it's going to be real good, like an autobiography," Tarkanian said. "Oh, yeah. I'm saying a lot. Telling all kinds of stories. I'll shake some people up.

"Some people better tape their ankles."

His son, Danny, said the tome will be an expanded version of the last eight summers at Bass Lake near Yosemite in California, where the Tarkanians have celebrated their annual family reunions.

The family just returned from that retreat, where 38 Tarkanians gathered.

"Most of the stories are about recruiting and interacting with different coaches," Danny said. "There are funny things in it. For years, at the family reunions, for a week at a time he'd stay up, drink wine and tell stories.

"Whenever you get your side out, even when it's just a feel-good measure, it's something good for you."

Author Dan Wetzel, who exposed the seedier side of the shoe business, with Don Yaeger, in "Sole Influence: Basketball, Corporate Greed, and the Corruption of America's Youth" in 2000, was in Las Vegas on Wednesday to hone the book's contents with Tarkanian.

"Runnin' Rebel" will be published by Sports Publishing, Inc., of Illinois.

Tarkanian was not involved with "Tarkanian: Countdown of a Rebel," Richard Harp's 1984 book. Tarkanian co-authored "Tark," with Terry Pluto, in 1988 and "Shark Attack," with Yaeger, in 1992.

"He's telling all his best recruiting and inside stories," Wetzel said. "It's going to be very entertaining. Needless to say, Tark has a million stories, and most are very, very funny."

Tarkanian, who guided UNLV to its lone NCAA basketball championship in 1990, ended his coaching career when he retired, from Fresno State, in 2002.

Although he helped sell season tickets to the Bulldogs' new basketball arena and his cell phone still has a Fresno area code, he said he likes to spend most of his time in Vegas.

The $2.3 million Basketball Academy behind Palace Station that bears his name, which opened two months ago, played host Wednesday to the practice sessions of three NBA summer-league teams.

Jerry stressed that Danny is running that show.

"I'm involved, but not coaching," said the elder Tarkanian. "It's a great facility. First class."

He reserves all of his coaching strength these days for his 10 grandchildren.

Tarkanian also books speaking engagements around the country, which is why he will return to town, briefly, on Aug. 2.

"He's good, health-wise," Danny said. "And he seems to be staying busy, which is the hardest thing in retirement. He's home more, so that's nice."

The Tarkanian patriarch has watched wife Lois and Danny enter, or attempt to enter, the very public world of politics.

Lois, a former Clark County School Board member, was sworn into office as a Las Vegas city councilwoman, of Ward 1, five months ago.

"It's really rejuvenated her," Jerry said. "She's had a form of lupus, so she (has been) sick a lot. But she's gotten into this. She's up early and out to work. It's just rejuvenated her. I don't know how she does it."

Last fall, Danny, a Republican, ran an unsuccessful bid to unseat state Sen. Mike Schneider, D-Las Vegas. Danny will run for secretary of state in the fall of 2006.

"He's doing a lot," Jerry said of Danny.

Yes, Jerry watched the 90-minute special on the rise and fall of the UNLV program, under his watch, that CBS aired three weeks ago. With narration by actor Ray Liotta, it had been scheduled to run on the Sunday between the national semifinals and title game in April.

"But the NCAA put heat on CBS" for giving him any publicity during college basketball's marquee event, Tarkanian said.

"Greg Anthony said some great things about me, but (the NCAA) made them pull that out," Tarkanian said. "And they had the negative stuff about Lloyd Daniels. And they put some Curry Kirkpatrick stuff in there.

"Curry got fired from Sports Illustrated and CBS because he was double-dipping, he was charging the same expense accounts to both places. And he was ripping me?"

In a 5-4 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court, in the fall of 1988, ruled for Tarkanian in his lawsuit against both UNLV and the NCAA.

The publishing of a photograph of three Rebels with the notorious Richard "Richie the Fixer" Perry in May 1991 led to Tarkanian's resignation a month later, although he was allowed to finish his UNLV career in 1991-92.

In 1998, the NCAA paid a $2.5 million settlement to Tarkanian.

He said that most everyone he talked with, who had watched the CBS show last month, received it well.

"Probably 80 percent liked it, which is really good for me. That's great," he said. "I never get 80 percent 'good.' People are always ripping me. They do something on me, it's usually 50-50, at best.

"The guy who put it together felt bad. He said he came in with an open mind and was amazed to find out there were no major violations, None whatsoever. Yet they made him pull some of that out ... overall, I liked it."