Thursday, Feb. 2, 2006 | 8:33 a.m.
Ron Kantowski's column appears on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Reach him at [email protected] or (702) 259-4088.
This Saturday, longtime -- and that's putting it mildly -- broadcaster Bob Blum will call his 1,000th UNLV game when the Lady Rebels visit Wyoming. The limitations of medical science will probably preclude him from making it to 2,000.
Although I wouldn't put it past him.
A member of the American Football Foundation Hall of Fame for his work with the old AFL's Oakland Raiders and San Diego Chargers, Blum has seen more games than Milton Bradley since beginning his play-by-play career in 1948.
Still going strong at 85, he has been behind the microphone for 190 Rebels men's basketball games, 80 football games, 75 baseball games, 20 softball games and 633 women's basketball games.
Yet Blum, who called his first UNLV game in 1973, hardly hesitated when asked about the most memorable games he has witnessed at UNLV. He rattled them off as if they were just so many words from the Rebels' sponsors.
At the top of his list is the 1977 Final Four at the Omni in Atlanta, in the midst of UNLV coach Jerry Tarkanian's first round of legal wrangling with the NCAA.
"Congressman Jim Santini came to Atlanta at the last minute. He didn't have a ticket, so I had him sit with me," Blum recalled. "He started cheering. At halftime, Wayne Duke, the commissioner of the Big Ten and the head of the tournament committee, came over and said 'You have to get that guy off press row. There's no cheering on press row.'
"I said 'Do you know who that guy is? He's our congressman -- who is chairman of the committee investigating the NCAA.
"Well," Blum recalled Duke saying in response. "Have him quiet down a little."
The games he remembers in Full Blum:
* North Carolina 84, UNLV 83, 1977 Final Four in Atlanta: "The Rebels were down 84-81 with just seconds to go when 'Sudden' Sam Smith hit a shot from the corner that today would have been a 3-pointer and tied the game. But as the buzzer sounded, our crowd still went wild. I turned to Don Iglinski, one of our boosters, and asked 'Don, did I miss something? We did lose by one.'
He said 'Yeah, but we covered the spread.' "
* UNLV 164, Hawaii-Hilo 111, 1976: "Still the highest-scoring game in NCAA history. With 275 points scored, I had a stiff neck the next day after trying to keep up with the action."
* UNLV 91, St. Mary's 87 (OT), 1974: "During that first season I had come from the Bay Area and was friendly with all the coaches there. Frank LaPorte brought in St. Mary's to play at the old Convention Center and I set him up with a comp for eight people at the midnight show at one of the hotels.
"Anyway, Ricky Sobers hit a shot from just past midcourt as the buzzer went off to send it into overtime. There was an argument as to whether the ball left Ricky's hand in time, and Booker Turner, the referee, came over to Rick Richardson, who was the timekeeper, and asked if the shot beat the buzzer.
"He said he didn't know but told Turner that I was sitting next to him. 'And if Bob Blum said it was good, that's good enough for me.' "
Blum said it wasn't good enough for LaPorte, the St. Mary's coach.
"He called me every name under the sun. I let him go on for a few seconds before asking if he still wanted the comps to the show. Then he quieted down."
* UNLV 121, San Francisco 95, 1977 NCAA first round at Tucson: "Another great game. USF had been rated No. 1 all year and was a big favorite. The Rebels destroyed them."
* UNLV 51, Santa Clara 19, 1974 football season: "Mike Thomas (who would go on to star with the Washington Redskins) rushed for 323 yards."
During his storied Las Vegas broadcast career there have been 998 reasons to tune in Blum, now in his 19th season as voice of the Lady Rebels on KSHP 1400-AM. Tonight's game against Texas Christian will be No. 999. Then Saturday at Wyoming will make it an even 1,000.
Who knows how many more will follow? Not Blum, who said he has no timetable for retiring.
"As long as I'm healthy and enjoy it, I'd like to keep doing it," he says.
I used to kid Blum that he was Marconi's roommate: Not Joe Marconi, the old Rams' running back, but Guglielmo Marconi, the guy who invented the radio in 1901.
While that's not true, they probably would have hit it off.
Marconi was a legend in his own time.
Blum is still one in ours.
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