Quincy Sanders: How his helmet stoked rivalry

By Ray Brewer (contact)

Friday, Oct. 1, 2010 | 2 a.m.

Quincy Sanders picks up his cell phone, realizes he is talking to a reporter and prepares to answer questions he’s been asked scores of times over the years.

It’s the week of the Fremont Cannon rivalry football game between UNLV and UNR, so the former Rebel has grown accustomed to the call looking for him to rehash what happened in the infamous 1995 contest. His answers never change. He doesn’t regret what occurred on the football field that fall afternoon in Reno.

Sanders, a standout performer at Northern Nevada’s Reed High School, was disliked by UNR faithful for turning his back on the hometown university and electing to play for UNLV, the hated team in the South.

From the second he stepped onto the field at Mackay Stadium wearing Rebel red, Reno fans voiced their displeasure.

Sanders recalls the words and treatment as something no athlete should endure, comments so out of line about him picking UNLV that he was concerned for his safety.

That was only the beginning.

UNR had its way with UNLV in a 55-32 victory. Some say the Wolf Pack ran up the score when they passed for a touchdown late in the fourth quarter with the game’s outcome decided.

As the final seconds ticked down, UNR players raced across the field to the UNLV sideline to get possession of the 545-pound cannon awarded annually to the winner of the game and painted that school’s colors. It had been painted red following UNLV’s victory in 1994.

A ruckus broke out among players, the second incident that afternoon. Sanders threw his helmet toward veteran UNR coach Chris Ault — the man who unsuccessfully recruited him a year earlier. The helmet missed.

Fifteen years later, Sanders remembers the incident like it was yesterday. So do fans of both programs, including some who are curious about the whereabouts of the helmet, which was never recovered.

“To say I regret it is to say I regret the lessons I learned from it,” Sanders said. “How many people get to go through their trials and tribulations in front of everyone?”

Sanders has gray hair poking through his trademark goatee. He wears thick-rimmed glasses, is soft-spoken and would rather talk about his work with at-risk Las Vegas-area children than his playing days.

Following a brief stint in the NFL with the Washington Redskins, he’s been out of the game for more than a decade, and hardly thinks about his life as an athlete.

He knows he’s considered a hero in the eyes of some UNLV football fans, some of whom wish his helmet-throwing aim had been more accurate.

He also knows he’s hated in the Reno area, a fact that hurts the 33-year-old who spent part of his childhood in the city and still visits family multiple times each year. And, for the record, he says he wasn’t aiming at Ault.

“I was coming home to what I thought was a homecoming, with people there to show their support no matter who won,” Sanders said. “It turned into totally something else.”

Sanders knows the incident was a black eye on the rivalry. He just hopes others use it the same way he has, as a learning tool.

He never hesitates bringing up what happened when he is working with children through his Las Vegas-based company, Bridge the Gap.

“It’s the most teachable moment in college football history, actually,” Sanders said. “If you look at the film, it’s the dos and don’ts of handling that type of situation. Honest to God, it was out of protection. They don’t know how it looks from my perspective.”

Sanders wasn’t the only UNLV player Reno fans had choice words for that day.

UNLV coach Jeff Horton was a longtime UNR assistant turned head coach who left after one year at the helm of the Wolf Pack program to go to UNLV. Receiver Todd Floyd starred at Reno’s McQueen High and played one year at UNR before transferring to UNLV.

The 1995 contest was the first time back in Reno for all three. It was a day they will never forget.

“Quincy is very, very competitive,” said Floyd, who joked that having most of the attention on Sanders was a relief. “You have some players who play off emotion and Quincy was definitely one of those guys ... There is a true hatred in that rivalry. They hate us and we hate them. But (the helmet throwing) isn’t what you wanted to see happen.”

Though many have forgotten the hard feelings from the game’s aftermath,the helmet-throwing incident is still brought up this time each year.

“He threw it at me and almost hit me. He was standing right in front of me,” Ault told the Lahontan Valley News this week. “If he would have hit me I would have picked it up and thrown it back at him. That’s how close he came to hitting me.”

But Ault didn’t pick it up and nobody knows for certain who did. Some say it turned up as a decoration at a Reno-area bar.

Nick Christensen, a former Sun reporter and UNLV graduate, is one of the die-hard fans who has searched Reno for the missing piece of history. He’s been to more than 20 bars during three trips, but has come up empty.

“It is out there somewhere. It has to be,” Christensen said. “It is a little bit of UNLV history. UNLV is not a school with a lot of lore, especially the football program. Even if someone has it hiding somewhere, it would be nice to know where.”

Christensen said he has met one person who recalls seeing the helmet, but more times than not, he is not greeted with open arms.

Sanders vividly remembers the treatment he received that afternoon in 1995 and doesn’t want anyone else to go through such abuse.

“Tell them to stop looking,” he said. “I still have a lot love for Reno. It helped raise me. They just can’t get over the fact I chose to bleed Rebel red.”