LOOKING IN ON: GOLF

By Brian Hilderbrand (contact)

Saturday, June 30, 2007 | 7:31 a.m.

Being an assistant college golf coach - even with a nationally prominent program such as UNLV - isn't quite as glamorous as being a top assistant with a similarly successful football or basketball team.

Instead of being intimately involved in the Xs and Os on game day, an assistant golf coach at the college level is relegated to observing players on the course because NCAA rules currently allow only one coach - and that's generally the head coach - to interact with the players during competition.

A large portion of the job, UNLV men's assistant Andy Bischel quipped, amounts to "hurry up and wait."

UNLV head coach Dwaine Knight would beg to differ - and so would the Golf Coaches Association of America.

Bischel, who last month completed his ninth season as Knight's top assistant, recently was honored as the 2007 Assistant Coach of the Year by TaylorMade-Adidas Golf and the Golf Coaches Association.

"I'm very proud of Andy and he's done a great job for us," Knight said of Bischel, who was a four-year member and co-captain of the UNLV swim team before earning a bachelor's degree in hotel administration in 1989.

"His gift is his love for the kids and seeing them grow and mature into young adults and also working hard to give them a chance to reach their dreams, which is a college education and playing golf at the highest level."

With the honor comes something more valuable to Bischel than the piece of hardware or the additional line on his resume: The recipient serves as the assistant coach of the U.S. team in the following year's Palmer Cup matches, a Ryder Cup-style competition between the top American and European collegiate golfers.

As much as Bischel relishes the opportunities to be out on the course with UNLV's golf team, he said he is well aware of his real value to the program.

"When it gets down to it, my job is to keep Coach (Knight) on the golf course, which means I've got to keep him out of the office" by making sure all the paperwork and organizational details are taken care of, he said.

But that's not to suggest that Bischel is a glorified secretary. In addition to making sure the university and NCAA paperwork is in order, he serves as the players' academic adviser, handles the logistics of the team's busy travel schedule, monitors the program's fundraising arm and assists Knight in recruiting.

Although he enjoys working with the players on the course, Bischel said the real satisfaction in his job comes from helping them succeed in the classroom. As the team's academic advis er, Bischel has seen the team's grade-point average top 3.0 for eight consecutive semesters - including a 3.34 GPA this spring.

Knight said Bischel's varied experience with UNLV's golf program has prepared Bischel to "take the next step" and head his own Division I golf program - a move Bischel said he is in no hurry to make.

"I'd like to be a head coach, but I don't have to be," said Bischel, who applied for the head coaching vacancy at Colorado last year. "I feel like I'm very good at what I do here and valuable to Coach and Coach makes it comfortable for me to do this.

"I can afford to sit back and be picky. It's a great job and I love what I do."