Analysis: Kruger’s roots run deep in Las Vegas

By Rob Miech

Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2009 | midnight

Anyone who saw Lon and Barb Kruger play host to a few dozen hearing-impaired children and their families Sunday afternoon at the Thomas & Mack Center witnessed something special.

Special for the Krugers.

As happy and bubbly and eager as those kids were to stretch and shoot with UNLV players, the patriarch of the basketball program and his wife were even more exuberant to make their day special.

Their many charitable endeavors in and around Las Vegas have been rich to the Krugers, and they have found a community that has matched their efforts.

It’s one of the many reasons why UNLV fans can count on Kruger, in his fifth season in Las Vegas, being the Rebels’ coach this time next year, in 2015 and 2020.

As has happened in recent years, Kruger’s name will undoubtedly be included in major openings that will have the coaching carousel spinning wildly, as it usually does, by early April.

Those calls need not be made.

Some around the Arizona program started pondering about Kruger when longtime boss Lute Olson stepped aside before the official start of practice.

That continued last month, when the Wildcats came to the Thomas & Mack Center and got thumped by 15 points. Kruger, some in Tucson believed, would be a great fit at Arizona.

“Kruger … has the kind of credentials (Wildcats athletic director Jim) Livengood is searching for,” wrote the Arizona Daily Star. The Tucson Citizen called Kruger “a perfect fit” for the Wildcats.

He is the lone current coach who has directed four different schools to victories in the NCAA tournament. Former coaches Eddie Sutton and Jim Harrick are the only others in that exclusive club.

UNLV fans who have watched Kruger lead the Rebels to victories in consecutive NCAA tournaments for the first time since 1991 need not hyperventilate.

Kruger, 56, has settled down in Las Vegas.

First and foremost, money is not an issue.

A Tucson source scoffed at Kruger’s five-year contract worth about $5.4 million, not including perks, such as a country club membership and incentives like a ticket revenue-sharing plan.

Elite programs could double that without flinching.

At this stage of Kruger’s career, however, it isn’t about padding the bank account as much as it is about putting his own stamp on a once-proud program and reviving it to past standards.

Past national championship standards.

That $10 million from the failed Atlanta Hawks stint secured the Krugers for life.

And if anyone thinks Kruger made out like a bandit with that ticket-revenue deal, think again. He will actually lose money on it until the Mack is regularly packed.

That ticket revenue would go back into the promotions and marketing of the program, and other UNLV teams, in a deal Kruger has arranged with D.J. Allen’s public relations and advertising firm.

Until then, that comes out of Kruger’s pocket, too.

The good faith that UNLV athletic director Mike Hamrick showed in getting the Nevada Board of Regents to include that in Kruger’s contract extension over the summer was invaluable in securing Kruger.

Essentially, Kruger has a five-year contract that could be renewed each offseason. Hamrick said he reviews all of his coaches’ deals, where their teams have been and where they’re going, every summer.

As for the ticket-revenue deal, Hamrick said Tuesday that it made sense.

“It’s something beneficial to both parties,” Hamrick said. “If it wasn’t, we wouldn’t have done it.”

In late October, when Arizona had its shake-up, Kruger told the Sun about he and his wife’s relationship with Las Vegas and UNLV.

“We’re very pleased with what’s happening,” Kruger said. “We love living here and the fans are great. We just have to keep growing it.”

Others have wooed Kruger with serious offers, especially after that run to the Sweet 16 in 2007.

“Forget interviews,” Allen wrote in “The Xs and Os of Success,” Kruger’s first effort as an author that Allen helped pen, “the offers were there.”

Which leads to the UNLV program that Kruger has so tirelessly shaped into a player again on the national stage.

The legendary Jerry Tarkanian told the Sun that the Rebels’ effort at Louisville last week was the most prominent victory since he left the school.

Recruits from national powers Kentucky (Derrick Jasper), Memphis (Tre’Von Willis) and UCLA (Chace Stanback) have bolted to UNLV because of Kruger’s philosophy of tough defense with a free-flowing offense that incorporates NBA-like schemes.

It isn’t far-fetched to think the Rebels could wind up in a Final Four in the next few years.

That’s the foundation that Kruger has built that won’t exist at any other program, including Arizona, this spring or in future springs.

The Krugers have moved no fewer than seven times over the past 30 years and the enjoy the roots they have established in Las Vegas.

Their son, Kevin, bought his first home here in May. Their daughter, Angie, married Mike Ciklin, a lawyer working for a Las Vegas casino, in September.

In August 2007, Lon and Barb Kruger bought two acres of land in The Enclave, an exclusive gated community in Southern Highlands, on which they will eventually build their retirement home.

That the Krugers have found the Las Vegas area to be so mutually magnanimous in its charitable endeavors cannot be understated.

Does all that sound like someone who’s pining to spend a few years getting another program to where UNLV is right now?

“I simply think he will be here until he’s through coaching,” Rebels assistant coach Greg Grensing told the Sun on the eve of Kruger’s 100th victory at UNLV last month. “I do believe that his roots are tied in pretty good in Las Vegas.”

Others may call Kruger. Having such Midwestern values, he’ll pick up the phone.

Don’t expect the conversation to last long.