Sunday, March 25, 2007 | 7:14 a.m.
With the Rebels' surprising run in this year's NCAA tournament, countless UNLV basketball stories have unfolded over the past few weeks of March Madness. Hearing and reading them has been like opening an old family scrapbook discovered by chance in the attic.
As each page turned I'd either get a warm smile on my face or cringe at the memory. I've done a lot of both lately as I was reminded of moments from the '70s, '80s and early '90s, and how the on-court performance - or off-court controversies - surrounding the Runnin' Rebels basketball program were about the only topics you'd hear people discussing in coffee shops or watering holes.
Rebel Fever was a fun thing to catch back then, or so we all thought until it turned into a virus that claimed a lot of victims.
Oddly, I don't recall hearing people share many stories lately about the teams or players from the mid-'90s to the present. There just wasn't much to be nostalgic about from that period of time.
Is there anyone out there whose heart swells, or pulse accelerates, at the mention of the names Massimino, Bayno or Spoonhour? During the decade and a half between the tumultuous and divisive end of the Tarkanian era and the successes of this most recent Rebels team, I must admit, I lost interest in UNLV basketball.
OK, so that makes me a fair-weather fan. That's just fine with me. I'm not the kind to wear school colors or put bumper stickers on my car, even when a team has just won a national championship. My loyalty goes so far as the entertainment value I get from sporting events, which I think puts me in a pack with many of the newcomers to town who either ignore or adopt the Runnin' Rebels depending on the needs and priorities of their individual lives.
The fresh faces who roll into Las Vegas each year with their own sets of hopes and dreams certainly have no obligation to hitch their wagon to the men's basketball team of the college that sits smack dab in the epicenter of this population explosion.
I remember the late casino executive and Rebel booster Bill "Wildcat" Morris telling me in the mid-'70s that the one single area of agreement among all loyal Las Vegans was the academic and athletic programs at UNLV.
"There's a lot of competition among the various hotel and casino owners," he said. "There are just so many things we battle each other over, but we're all in accord that building a strong university with great athletic teams benefits everyone."
For the next 15 years Morris's words rang true. With the university making gradual strides in its academic programs and faculty hirings, and the men's basketball team capturing the imagination of the country with its adrenaline-pulsing run-and-gun style, the quickly growing local community was nearly 100 percent behind UNLV. For two consecutive seasons in the mid-'70s Tarkanian's teams averaged right around 110 points a game on offense, and this was before the 45-second shot clock or 3-point line had come into being. UNLV had gunners like Easy Eddie Owens and "Sudden" Sam Smith, who once scored 7 points in eight seconds at the end of a game.
They also had a superstar named Reggie Theus, with a tumbleweed Afro and an engaging personality, who became a darling of the town and who broke a lot of Rebel hearts when he opted for the NBA after his junior year. (I was delighted to see Reggie coach long-shot New Mexico State into this year's NCAA tournament.)
I remember being totally bummed out when UNLV lost to North Carolina by 1 point in the Final Four of 1977, after Rebels center Larry Moffett broke his nose in the first half. And I was equally distressed when the 1987 Rebels lost the national semifinal game to Bob Knight's Indiana Hoosiers, despite Mark Wade's tourney-record 18 assists.
Then of course came the ultimate glory years of 1990 (a national championship with a 30-point thrashing of Duke in the final ) and a near repeat the following year when Duke and Bobby Hurley got their revenge over a 39-game-winning Rebel squad with a 2-point win in the Final Four.
And then came a front-page photograph in the Review-Journal, appearing on May 26, 1991, of three stars from that great team relaxing in a hot tub with a convicted sports fixer, Richie Perry. That's the day that an already on-probation UNLV basketball program moved from a feel-good highlight reel and a daily menu of rah-rah sports page stories to front-page revelations and accusations hurled between the administration of the school, led by then-UNLV President Bob Maxson, and those undyingly loyal to Tark the Shark.
Don't expect me to chronicle the allegations. It would be easier to diagram the buildup to the Iraq war.
As a former UNLV instructor, my sympathies were more with the academic side of the aisle, but my overall sense of those times was one of sadness that the city could be so torn apart at its very core, at the one place Wildcat Morris had said everyone loved without condition. It was as close to a Civic War as Las Vegas is ever likely to experience.
Arguments broke out in restaurants and fights broke out in taverns over whose side of the debate you took. Several longtime friendships ended over the ensuing controversies.
But time has done a lot to mend those deep wounds. Dr. Robert Maxson is now retired from a successful stint as president of California State University , Long Beach, and works as a consultant for the California State system. Jerry Tarkanian is happily retired, and was honored by having the court at the Thomas & Mack Center dedicated to him.
I hear that the two men have found a sense of civility between them, and I have no doubt both cheered the Rebels over this lively past month.
I've been paying close attention to this current group of players since the beginning of the season, impressed once again with a team coached to play hard and smart on the court - and by all accounts behave themselves off-court as well.
Am I a fickle fan? You're darned right. But I've had good reason to be.
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