Duly Noted: The Tarkanian Way

Saturday, Nov. 26, 2005 | 7:10 a.m.

What, you mean naming a street after the greatest coach UNLV has ever known wasn't tribute enough?

Actually, it's more like an alley. But chances are unless you drive a cab for a living or are one of the savvy patrons of the Thomas & Mack Center looking to make a quick exit, you may have never traversed (Jerry) Tarkanian Way.

It runs for no more than a couple of hundred yards between Harmon Road and the press tunnel at the T&M. There are no snazzy hotels or restaurants on Tarkanian Way. In fact, about the only thing you'll find on it is steer manure during the National Finals Rodeo.

None of that, of course, matters to Tark, who was never one to blow his own horn. Or a 10-point lead.

Tonight, UNLV will finally get around to honoring the most famous Rebel of all in a more appropriate way, by naming the court at the Thomas & Mack Center after him.

I wouldn't have stopped there. I would have named the building for him, too.

Messers (E. Parry) Thomas and (the late Jermome) Mack may have fronted the money for the arena. But Tark was the one who made it come alive.

So I would have just added an ampersand to the old girl. The Thomas & Mack & Tarkanian Center. Or TMT for short.

Regardless of what the NCAA thinks, it has a nice ring to it.

TV TARK

One of Tark's biggest supporters in the local press was Channel 13's Ron Futrell, who hosted his TV coach's show. The show always came off without a hitch. Or so it appeared to the viewer.

"He would often show up during or even after the intro to the show," Futrell said. "But he was always there. Often we would start the show on a one shot on me, and I knew that sometime during the opening segment, he would be there. He would just walk in, put on a mike and start talking.

"Another time he was so tired that he fell asleep during one of the breaks, and I had to wake him up. There also was the time he was reading an article in the newspaper and we came back on camera and he was still buried in the article. So we spent the next couple of minutes talking about what he was reading.

"I've worked with coaches who were obsessive about their coach's shows. Tark seemed like he was more concerned about perfecting the ameoba defense."

THE AIR UP THERE

I mostly covered the UNLV football team during Tark's latter years at UNLV (that darn short straw) but did follow the team during the postseason. One of the stories I remember is how Tark calmed his players' reservations about playing in the high altitude of Denver during the 1990 Final Four.

"Don't worry about the altitude," Tark told his guys. "That's only outside. We're playing inside."

The Rebels bought it. They ran up and down the McNichols Arena floor against Georgia Tech and Duke as if it were 100 feet below sea level.

REBEL WITH A CLAUSE ...

... From Tark's new book, "Runnin' Rebel" written with Dan Wetzel:

* "I had a 6-foot-9 recruit from Chicago we called Crazy Khruschev ..."

* "It was me, Wayne Newton and a Catholic priest ..."

* "We hatched a plan where we'd stash the recruit at a remote mountain cabin until signing day ... "

* "My philosophy was never to hire an assistant with a set of golf clubs ..."

* "I lost George Gervin for a girlfriend who didn't even last ... "

* "We couldn't have cheated like UCLA even if we wanted to ... "

* "It was like 2:30 p.m., but if Al McGuire wanted to have a drink, I was going to have a drink, too ... "

* "UNLV announced the hiring, scheduled a press conference and brought me up to Vegas. At that point, I realized I hadn't even met the university president yet. UNLV had great boosters. They ran the athletic department ... "

* "If he is driving a Cadillac, he's going to Kentucky ... "

* "Well, today's your lucky day. My son wants to go to UNLV, and for about $25,000, you got him ... "

* "Sinatra loved our program but we could never get him to come to a game ... "

509-105

Tark's record in 19 seasons at UNLV coach.

Number of UNLV teams Tark has coached to the Final Four.

Number of rounds of golf Tark has played since retiring from coaching.

Coaching legend Bob Knight:

"As I watched his teams I developed a great respect for him as a coach. As I got to know Jerry Tarkanian as a person, I enjoyed him very much as a friend."

in the foreward to "Runnin' Rebel," Tark's new book written with Dan Wetzel.