A passion for sports leaves imprint on Vegas

Saturday, Oct. 27, 2007 | 7:12 a.m.

Dennis Finfrock wore several hats en route to becoming one of the most influential people on the Las Vegas sports scene:

CAN YOU DIG IT?

It was the mother of all excavation projects.

Two weeks after workers began pouring concrete at the Thomas & Mack Center, Dennis Finfrock was basically told that the arena would have to be self -sustaining if he, as its director, wanted to be paid. There would be no additional handouts from the state Legislature.

Well, there was one more handout from the Legislature. Sensing that the only way for the arena to make money was for it to become an all-purpose facility, Finfrock went to Carson City to ask for $200,000 to rip out the first nine rows of seats so they could be replaced with a retractable grandstand.

Finfrock got the money - somehow - and the Thomas & Mack Center was retrofitted for rodeo and hockey and major concerts and all the other events that make it the second-largest -grossing arena in the country behind Madison Square Garden.

"If that didn't happen, there's no (National Finals) rodeo," said Pat Christenson, who worked under Finfrock for 11 years as both a wrestling coach and the Thomas & Mack director before leaving UNLV to become president of Las Vegas Events.

MAN OF INFLUENCE

Dennis Finfrock has been called the Bill Walsh of the local sports and entertainment industry because of the many people who have worked under him or been influenced by his management philosophies. These include:

Pat Christenson, Las Vegas Events president

Daren Libonati, Thomas & Mack Center, Sam Boyd Stadium and Cox Pavilion director

Mark Prows, MGM Grand Garden Arena vice president

Chris Baldizan, Mandalay Bay Arena and Entertainment entertainment director

Steve Stallworth, Orleans Arena vice president and general manager

Patty Waybill, Aladdin Resort and Casino (Planet Hollywood Theater)

Mike Enoch, Live Nation Theater Group

Ron Drake, venue consultant

Donna Morrissey, Celine Dion Productions

Joe Santiago, Station Casino properties

IF YOU GO

What: Professional Bull Riders Founders Celebration (to honor Dennis Finfrock , with all proceeds to benefit injured bull rider Lee Akin)

When: 9 p.m. Thursday

Where: South Seas Ballroom at Mandalay Bay Convention Center

Tickets: $55; (877) 632-7400

Dennis Finfrock talks softly these days and carries a big stick, which, come to think of it, is sort of the way it always has been, except now it's a literal stick instead of a figurative one.

Finfrock changed the face of sports in Las Vegas, bringing big-time rodeo to town, shifting the power in boxing, setting the gold standard for athletic promotion, and training today's crop of arena directors. He even helped oust UNLV basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian.

The former UNLV wrestling coach, arena director, interim athletic director and MGM Grand vice president became one of the most influential people in local sports during the 1990s - in fact, this newspaper named him the most influential person in local sports in 1995.

This would have been about the time Finfrock was wresting the "Boxing Capital of the World" crown from Caesars Palace and setting it on the head of the MGM Grand's lion.

This also would have been before he contracted Parkinson's disease.

So now he carries this hickory cane, the kind a proper Englishman might prefer, which will help him get to and from the dais at Thursday's Professional Bull Riders Founders Celebration at Mandalay Bay, where Finfrock will be honored for bringing those tough guys to town. He also will receive the Medal of Courage Award on Nov. 3 from the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater, Okla.

If you're scoring at home, that's two Hall of Fames in one week.

There's no sugarcoating Parkinson's, which eventually will rob even a strong man's ability to walk, talk and lead a normal life. Finfrock has been dealing with the ravages of Parkinson's for 15 years. But if the disease has gotten to his spirit, it's hard to tell.

"He's no different than he was back then," said Daren Libonati, the current Thomas & Mack Center director and Finfrock's protege and friend. "Sometimes, he just has to let me talk a little more."

One of those times was Monday in Libonati's office at the Thomas & Mack, when he spoke at such length of his mentor's many contributions to local sports that Finfrock, a humble man, surely would have stopped him, if only it didn't take so much energy.

Libonati wanted to be there when I talked to his former boss. The two spend so much time together that Libonati can read Finfrock's body language and communicate for him.

They have dinner every Friday - "we like Italian, but every once in a while we sneak in some KFC," Libonati said - and during football season will catch a Green Valley or Silverado High game. Libonati's son Nick plays for the Gators and Finfrock's nephew, Zack Rivas, plays for the Skyhawks.

They'll sit and watch the game and "send smoke signals to the coaching staff," as Libonati puts it, partly because they don't want to yell like the other grown-ups, but mostly because, even on a good day, it's difficult for Finfrock to speak more than a few sentences.

But Monday was a good day. Finfrock spoke for himself.

When I asked whether he and Herb McDonald, the late Las Vegas Events director, and Michael Gaughan, et al., had an ally when the Las Vegas delegation approached the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association about moving the National Finals Rodeo from Oklahoma City, a real cow town, to the ersatz one here, his eyes flashed like silver belt buckles.

"Shawn Davis," he said of the former NFR general manager. "There was a roomful of black hats in the boardroom. He was the one white hat. He was the one who cast the deciding vote."

When it came to sports, and specifically those that work in Las Vegas, Finfrock had X-ray vision. He made the call to bring the fledgling Professional Bull Riders to town in the early 1990s, giving the maverick tour instant credibility.

The PBR has grown into a high-profile tour with a TV contract and trading cards and action figures of the riders and bulls. But in its infancy, it was mostly a vehicle for Anheuser-Busch to introduce Bud Light to a new demographic.

Finfrock was not deterred. He predicted the PBR was going to be a hit, with or without Spuds MacKenzie's help.

One of the bull riders, the many-time world champion Ty Murray, became an official spokesman for the MGM Grand. So did Sugar Ray Leonard and Andre Agassi.

"It was the first time a hotel property had wrapped its arms around a cowboy," Libonati said . Which is true, if you don't count the security guards on nights the cowboys had too much to drink.

Finfrock used a similar strategy in luring many of the big fights away from Caesars Palace. Unsuccessful in outbidding Bob Arum to become Oscar De La Hoya's promoter, he was successful in landing some of De La Hoya's biggest fights as well as those of George Foreman and Mike Tyson, after Tyson got out of prison. Who could forget Big George knocking out Michael Moorer with that perfect right hand to become heavyweight champ at the advanced age of 45? That was such a big night in the MGM Grand's boxing history that the lion out front roared.

Even Finfrock's mistakes made money. When Steve Wynn made the dubious decision to get into the boxing business by signing Buster Douglas after he knocked out Tyson, Finfrock countered by making Jorge Luis Gonzalez, the big Cuban, the MGM's "house" heavyweight. It cost Wynn $30 million to sign Douglas. It cost Finfrock only $100,000 for Gonzalez.

The MGM Grand made more than seven times that much on a triple-header featuring Gonzalez. The only thing it cost Finfrock in the long run was his handlebar mustache, which Finfrock agreed to shave after his fighter was beaten senseless by Riddick Bowe.

"They had all those fights with Tyson, and they were that close to having the heavyweight champion of the world," said Marc Ratner, the former Nevada State Athletic Commission executive director. "The MGM Grand had a tremendous impact on boxing, not only locally, but worldwide. Dennis was certainly a big part of that."

Finfrock also had a big part in shaping the local sports and entertainment industry, considering all the experts in those fields who worked under his umbrella. People such as Libonati and Pat Christenson, his former UNLV sidekick who went on to become president of Las Vegas Events, owe their careers to him. But Finfrock deflects much of the praise those and others have heaped upon his still - broad shoulders.

"You hire the best people you can," he said. "Then you give them the tools they need and some space, and you watch them work."

No discourse about Finfrock would be complete without mentioning his role in the ouster of Tarkanian. He was seen by many as the henchman who carried out then-UNLV President Bob Maxson's plan to run Tarkanian out of town. Others, including those in his inner circle, soft-pedal his complicity, saying he was only a loyal employee taking the hit for the guy who hired him.

"I feel bad that it happened," Finfrock says today.

That's exactly what I was thinking when he dropped his cane to shake my hand.