Wednesday, March 16, 2005 | 9:53 a.m.
Raymond "Skip" Avansino Jr. first saw Marc Ratner's enthusiasm for sports, and his managerial and organizational skills, at UNR in the early 1960s.
Avansino, the chairman of the Nevada State Athletic Commission, recalls neighborhood kids barking for Ratner when they often gathered in the lush grassy quad of the two-story Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity house.
"They'd yell, 'Rat, Rat, where you at!?' " Avansino said. "They wanted himto come out and teach them baseball. He always admired young people and was interested in developing young athletes.
"I can see him standing outside on a stairwell, giving instructions to a bunch of young players, like a commander. He was doing it then."
For more than 10 years, Ratner has been arguably the most recognizable figure on the Las Vegas sports landscape.
He is a Mountain West Conference football line judge, the commissioner of the Southern Nevada Officials Association, the timekeeper at UNLV basketball games and the executive director of the NSAC.
When he taps the scales at boxing weigh-ins, however, Ratner ensures that his easily identifiable mug is aimed at the fighters so no camera catches him in its lens. That's for the warriors.
He cringes when he sees weigh-ins from other areas of the country and the scale official stands between the fighters, facing the camera.
"You can see them," Ratner said. "I turn my back."
That's because of Chuck Minker, Ratner's late predecessor who was also his confidant and mentor for 20 years. When Minker became ill in 1991, Ratner asked if he should fill in for Minker at a weigh-in.
"Yeah, go ahead," Minker told Ratner. "But don't get in front of the scale. Make sure your back is always to the cameras."
Minker will weigh heavily on Ratner's mind when he gets inducted into the Southern Nevada Sports Hall of Fame in June at the Cox Pavilion.
"I will share the award with him," Ratner said. "In horse racing, we'd be a twin entry. I feel his loss. For me to get any kind of award, he's part of it. A great guy and an honest man, taken way too early."
A rare form of lung cancer claimed the 41-year-old Minker, a non-smoker, in May 1992. He had picked Ratner as his successor.
"Our philosophies are pretty much the same," Ratner said, "to have a level playing field, to take care of business and have the right officials at the fights. I promised him, before he passed away, that I would try to do what's right."
A boxing fan is born
Ratner, 60, is the face of Las Vegas in many ways. Born in Phoenix and raised in Pomona, Calif., for a stretch, his father, Heiden, moved the family to Las Vegas in 1957 to set up a barber and beauty supply business.
Heiden Ratner, who had suffered a stroke, died in 1979 from hip-surgery complications. Marc said naming the youngest of his three children after his father was the best thing he's ever done.
Heiden Jr. averaged 26.6 points for Silverado High's basketball team as a sophomore this season, and he will earn All-State second-team honors Thursday. Marc attended 27 of his son's 28 games.
"It gives me pleasure," the elder Ratner said, "just to say his name."
Ratner had a brief amateur boxing career at Las Vegas High.
"We'd have matches after school, but I would be like some of these guys who close their eyes and throw," he said. "The guy who kept his eyes open would punch you. I got slugged a couple of times. But I'm a pacifist, I guess."
In April 1962, Ratner went to his first major bout, Carlos Ortiz's 15-round unanimous decision against Joe Brown at the Las Vegas Convention Center.
Ratner rose early one morning when he was 18 to be at the front of what he envisioned to be a long line at the Convention Center for tickets to Sonny Liston's heavyweight title defense against Floyd Patterson.
When Ratner arrived at the building at 7 a.m., the line consisted of him. He bought four tickets, at $10 apiece, for seats in the top row of the arena.
He and three friends saw Liston knock Patterson down three times in the first round to retain his heavyweight belt on July 22, 1963.
Those four ticket stubs and a classic framed photograph -- Ratner's left fist against Liston's right cheek, Liston's right fist against Ratner's jaw -- are prized possessions in Ratner's museum-like office.
"Who would know, 40 years later ... " he said.
In the late 1960s, Ratner started officiating high school sports in his spare time while helping his father run Ace-Hy Beauty Supply.
He eventually went into business with Nevada power broker Sig Rogich, who coaxed him into becoming a per diem boxing inspector in 1985. Ratner befriended Minker, who was then a boxing judge.
Ratner's office is a sweet science shrine.
A "Joe Louis Punch ... it's a knockout!" poster greets visitors. Framed letters from Roy Jones Jr. and Oscar De La Hoya hang above his window, and the many posters for which there is no wall space are rolled up in a metal filing cage.
A simple but exact sketch of Ratner by famous artist LeRoy Neiman, on an official notice from a Mike Tyson hearing in 1998, hangs framed on his desk wall, above at least 100 fight credentials.
Two footballs, from Aloha and Independence bowls that he worked as a line judge, are encased in glass, and two framed photographs captured him running along college football sidelines in his black-and-white uniform.
But boxing dominates the office.
Ratner's home phone number is listed, and he is as apt to answer the office phone as any of his three assistants. When one of them picks up, he is never told who's on the line.
"I may not say much, but I always want to be available," Ratner said. "I think it's only fair to the writers. The media is a big part of the job. That's why I take all the phone calls.
"That will be my epitaph ... He called me back."
Which makes his favorite line from the 1999 Ron Shelton boxing movie "Play it to the Bone" even more poignant.
"Get Ratner on the phone!"
A steady hand
The five members of the NSAC are appointed three-year terms by the governor. At any time, that quintet can meet and, with a majority vote, oust the executive director, who is officially a state employee.
"I'm chairman of the commission," Avansino said, "and I can state to you, unequivocally, that I support Marc Ratner."
That Ratner has held the post for 13 years is a testament of his ability to calmly handle a wide range of personalities.
"He has the greatest ambition to continue to uphold the integrity of boxing," Avansino said. "He shares the commission's interest in striving to maintain the highest standards for legitimate and good, quality boxing.
"He's somewhat unflappable. He's an excellent diplomat in his style and demeanor and manner. Each commissioner today loves him and admires him and respects him."
Ratner said an unflappable demeanor is critical in his main vocation.
"You (do) have a lot of controversy," he said. "There are a lot of things on fight night. A guy says, 'I won't go out,' and you have to be calm. My personality is such that I don't get very upset. I try to work things out.
"The fighters are great, for the most part. Some of their corner people are tough. Some of the promoters can be tough. Overall, the fighters are wonderful to talk to."
He entertains himself when, at a major fight, he glances behind him at star athletes and celebrities flashing their $1,500 suits and diamonds and gold.
"And I still get to sit a little bit in front of them," Ratner said. "For me, it's a passion. I pinch myself to be able to sit ringside at these fights, these major fights that the whole world is watching."
Disaster in the ring
Glitz and glamour are the rare moments of Ratner's job. The toughest is when a bout ultimately ends in death. On his watch as executive director, four boxers have lost their lives.
In 1997, journeyman Johnny Montantes died two days after getting punished, for $2,000, by James Crayton at the Orleans. Officials believe Montantes, tagged by a solid Crayton right, was already unconscious before his head hit the canvas.
As per NSAC regulations, the wife and two young sons of Montantes received a $50,000 accidental death benefit. It was the boxer's biggest pay day.
In June 2002, a flurry of Fernando Montiel body blows stopped Pedro Alcazar in the sixth round at the MGM Grand.
After the fight, Alcazar looked like a beaten fighter, Ratner said, but no worse. The next day, Alcazar rode a thrill ride at the Stratosphere. Preparing to return to his native Panama, he dropped dead from a subdural hematoma in a hotel room shower.
"Those are the toughest moments I have," Ratner said. "To have people fatally injured is the worst part of the sport and my biggest concern before any fight. I always think of that.
"We can't monitor one of the hardest parts of the sport, what goes on in sparring. I've been pretty lucky that way, but fighters are pretty secretive."
The controversial nature of the sport often makes it, the NSAC and its executive director targets for criticism, which is when Ratner's composure is most valuable.
An interview in his office last week took place the day a newspaper columnist wrote that an August 2000 scandal, in which Thomas Williams took a dive against Richie Melito at Paris Las Vegas, threatened to embarrass Ratner.
"It's been proven it was fixed," Ratner said. "That's a terrible thing. It looked like a real fight to me ... you just try to do your best and be ever-vigilant. It was a tough article, but it comes with the territory. I'm not perfect.
"I try to do what I believe is right, and sometimes I make mistakes."
The most bizarre episode of Ratner's career so far, he said, was Fan Man steering a motorized hang glider into the outdoor Caesars Palace ring during the seventh round of Evander Holyfield's title fight against Riddick Bowe in 1993.
After a 21-minute delay, the round continued. One judge scored the round for Bowe, another went to Holyfield and the third judge called it a draw.
"The irony is that if the one who scored it even had given that round to Bowe, (Bowe) would have kept his title in a draw," Ratner said. "It came into play and may have changed the history of heavyweight fighting."
He believes he came closest to losing his job in 1997, when Tyson took two bites out of Holyfield's ears at the MGM Grand. After the first one, referee Mills Lane told Ratner he wanted to disqualify Tyson.
Ratner asked Lane if he was sure, what college football officials always ask when one wants to eject someone. The pair spoke with the ringside doctor, and Lane let the fight continue.
"And Tyson bit him again," Ratner said. "Obviously, that was the end. That was surreal. Looking back, the problem for me would have been, after the first bite, if Mike would have knocked Holyfield out.
"I think it would have been criticized forever and I probably would have lost my job over it."
Ratner fined Tyson $3 million and revoked his Nevada license. Veteran boxing writer Tim Kawakami, of the San Jose Mercury News, said Ratner's credibility played a major role in the public trusting that Tyson would be disciplined.
"Ratner has built a national reputation," wrote award-winning boxing author Thomas Hauser, "for integrity and competence."
Ratner has taken interest in the steroid outrage that is sweeping the country. Three years ago, the NSAC fined Fernando Vargas $100,000 and suspended him for nine months for testing positive for steroids after a loss to De La Hoya.
"That's a pretty stiff penalty compared to what baseball's talking about," Ratner said. "This is a little, small athletic commission, but we've been testing randomly for steroids for 10 years. We take it seriously."
Still a fan
Come June, when Ratner lands in a sports hall of fame, he will thank more than Minker. He is indebted to Sandy Johnson, Coleen Patchin and Barbara Barcenas, his administrative assistants who have been together for more than 10 years.
Joann, his wife of 19 years, Heiden Jr. and daughter Mary support all of his sporting endeavors.
He would consider a position with a national boxing commission, which is being promoted by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz, but compensation, base and family desires would be important factors in such a decision.
While Ratner believes the sport would benefit from federal governance and uniform rules for all states, he is concerned about states' rights and adamantly against Nevada footing the bill for a national organization.
He called boxing the most resilient of all sports.
"It's more popular than people would admit," Ratner said. "It is a niche sport, but when the right fighters fight each other, it still transcends, in a lot of ways, other sports.
"I still enjoy it, and I still like coming to work. I know there are people out there who want to knock the sport and knock the commission. And I can handle that."
