Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

SPORTS:

The Elevator: UNLV athletic department goes up — and down

Sun Blogs

GOING UP

UNLV athletic department: For offering reduced-price $10 tickets for tonight’s season opener against Division I-AA Sacramento State at Sam Boyd Stadium. (The offer was good through Friday.) The first 2,522 kids 14 and younger also will receive a free sweatband as they enter the stadium, with the first 2,500 being part of the promotion. The other 22 most likely will come from the Rebels’ starting offense and defense, which aren’t expected to need theirs because they won’t be breaking a sweat.

The UNLV men’s soccer team: For beating 23rd-ranked Cal Poly 1-0. It was Rebels’ first victory over a ranked opponent on the road in coach Mario Sanchez’s four years on the job. Freshman Nick Marshall scored a golden G-O-O-O-O-L! in the second overtime period to get his name in the sports briefs.

The Mtn.: For staying on the air for four years. Some viewers in the Mountain West coverage area still don’t get it, which, come to think of it, is exactly what this elevator operator said when the league’s new TV deal was announced. Wayne and Garth, meet James Bates and Todd Christensen. (In case you don’t get The Mtn. either, that’s the network’s broadcast team for semi-important football games.)

GOING DOWN

Pacific Coast League: For announcing its season award winners one per day, as they do in the major leagues. This accomplishes nothing, except forcing the guy who compiles the sports briefs in places such as Albuquerque and Tacoma to decide which is more important to his readers: Who was named manager of the year in the Coast League or who won the cliff diving match in Acapulco.

UNLV athletic department For hiring Christian Hardigree as an associate athletic director for community development and special projects. Previously, she served as UNLV’s assistant president/chief of staff and was an associate professor and the department chairwoman of UNLV’s Hotel Management Department. Hardigree also has an extensive background as a trial attorney, including private consulting and mediation/arbitration services. Although this elevator operator expects she will do a fine job, he’d be even more convinced if she collected baseball cards when she was a little girl, because then she’d have at least a little bit of a sports background.

Mountain West: For making the rules for its new Facebook-driven Football Fan Favorite Photo Contest too stringent: “No objectionable content, such as alcohol, smoking, firearms, violence or nudity,” the rules say. That pretty much rules out that the winning photo will come from the tailgate area at this year’s UNLV-UNR game.

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