DULY NOTED

Saturday, Dec. 2, 2006 | 7:07 a.m.

REMEMBERING THE FORGOTTEN ARMY-NAVY GAME

Army and Navy will knock helmets in football for the 107th time today.

Or 108th, if you happened to be stationed in Hollandia, Dutch New Guinea, in August 1945.

Las Vegan Russ Bennett, a petty officer third class cook (among other things) in the Navy, was among the 7,000 Navy and 40,000 Army personnel who were holding down the fort after Adm. Chester Nimitz and Gen. Douglas MacArthur wrested control of that strategic location in the southwest Pacific from the Japanese.

According to Bennett, the (new) natives of Hollandia were getting restless when three crates containing 25 full football uniforms - jerseys, pads, shoes and helmets - mysteriously arrived at a receiving dock. So it was decided to choose sides and play a football game.

Army Engineers and Navy Seabees cleared a 100-yard swath from the jungle and a coin was flipped to see who would get the odd uniform. Navy won the extra, but Army got to play in the black jerseys while Navy had to bleach its uniforms white. Because there weren't enough uniforms for two platoons, players swapped in tents that were erected beyond the end zones.

"No one, in all probability, expected to see much of a game," said Bennett, still going strong at 80.

Still, he said about 15,000 curious servicemen turned out on a muggy day that, combined with the previous evening's rain, turned the field into a swamp the likes of which not even Steve Spurrier has seen.

The Navy team, according to an old term paper that Bennett wrote about the experience, won 9-0.

Bennett said Doc Blanchard and Glenn Davis, Mr. Inside and Mr. Outside, should have been there.

Army could have used them.

FIRING SQUAD

Memo to UNLV football fans willing to wait four or five or more years for a winning season or two:

Dirk Koetter, 40-33 in six seasons at Arizona State.

Fired.

Chuck Amato, 49-37 in seven years at North Carolina State.

Canned.

Mike Shula, 10-2 last season, 6-6 this year at Alabama.

Gassed.

And that was just this week.

This is how they do it on the BCS campuses: You must win. You must win big. And you must win now.

Or else you become an offensive coordinator in the Sun Belt Conference.

SHOW OF HANDS

Remember when Arizona played UNLV in basketball, and it was usually on Saturday afternoon on national TV with Brett Musburger and Billy Packer calling the action - not on a Tuesday night on a local cable news channel with KLAS Channel 8's Dave McCann and Chris Maathuis doing play-by-play (not that they didn't do just fine).

Anyone? Bueller? Anyone?

THE READERS SOMETIMES E-MAIL

I'm a little late reading your reader comments about UNLV and its football team. But I see where one said: "Mike Hamrick is a loser. He should go back to East Carolina."

Just who gave this guy the impression that your athletic director would be welcome back here?

- Jim in Winterville, N.C.

Northern Arizona and former Bishop Gorman coach Mike Adras:

"Kansas has five players who were McDonald's All-Americans. We have five players who like to eat at McDonald's."

- After the Lumberjacks were beaten 91-57 at Kansas in their season opener.

AROUND THE HORN

State football championships won by Las Vegas High, which will play Galena of Reno for the title at 12:30 p.m. today at Sam Boyd Stadium.

14-8

The record of new Gladiators quarterback Shaun King as an NFL starting quarterback.

New 51s manager Lorenzo Bundy's career home run record at James Madison University.