THE SKILL OF VICTORY: Felix Rappaport profile

      The guy's a hard-core sports fan, the Philadelphia type who loves his Eagles, Flyers, Phillies and Sixers.
      Felix Rappaport has lived in Las Vegas six years, long enough to join Mirage Resorts Inc. as director of guest services and move in 1996 to become general manager of Boulder Station.
      But 2,500 miles of geography hasn't separated the cheesesteak-loving Rappaport from his Eagles season tickets.
      So, there he sat three Mondays ago in an upper level of Philly's Veterans Stadium, watching as his beloved boys were beaten by the San Francisco 49ers, 24-12.
      Rappaport will tell you the sports-as-a-metaphor-for-work thing can be overdone, but there are values in the one that he readily admits transfer to the other.
      Passion, preparation, the efficient use of workers in the workplace.
      Just walk into his rectangular-shaped office at Boulder Station, and at eye level appears a saying written in black felt tip pin -- "If you practice with emotion and purpose you'll play with passion and confidence."
      The source of the shibboleth is National Hockey League hall of famer Bryan Trottier, but it just as well could have been any of a dozen managers within the hierarchy of Rappaport's employer, Station Casinos Inc.
      Rappaport joined the company in August 1996 after serving as Treasure Island's vice president of hotel operations, and holding a similar position at The Mirage.
      "The big thrill for me was the chance to run my own property," he says. "I wanted to diversify."
      The guy never planned on becoming a casino boss. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in cultural anthropology and spent seven years running a New Jersey chapter of the American Red Cross.
      Rappaport developed expertise in personnel management and such late-1970s business concepts as "management by objectives" and "time management."
      But the late-70s saw casinos opening in Atlantic City, N.J., and a push was on for personnel types. So, the twentysomething Rappaport and a close pal figured they'd give it a shot. Rappaport was hired as an employee recruiter at the Brighton, which later became the Sands.
      His buddy? He never got a casino job.
      "I remember thinking this is big time, kind of like working in Hollywood," Rappaport remembers. "I was not and never had been myself a hard-core gambler."
      In 1983, he moved to a downtown Philadelphia hotel, where he rose to become vice president and general manager before accepting a one-year stint as a vice president and hotel general manager in the Radisson chain. He joined Mirage Resorts in 1991.
      The 45-year-old Rappaport looks several years younger than his birth certificate shows. He's an offensive and defensive lineman in a Las Vegas flag football league, and regularly plays racquetball.
      The Station Casinos' hierarchy is something of a jockocracy, with top executives playing basketball, football and golf. Many are lean and stand over 6-foot-tall, providing talent for a competitive city league basketball team.
      Blake Sartini, the company's chief operating officer and executive vice president, is legendary for drawing upon his own background as an avid basketball player to motivate his workers.
      Within four years, Station Casinos has grown from owning just the off-Strip Palace Station to adding Boulder Station, Texas Station and Sunset Station, along with two Missouri gaming complexes.
      As the Strip "matures" and traffic problems continue to compound, he says, the Station Casinos plan calls for an increasing number of tourists to stay at what traditionally have been locals casinos.
      A decade from now, Boulder Station's 70 percent to 30 percent mix of locals to out-of-state customers could change to 50-50, mirroring the client transformation of Anthony Marnell's off-Strip Rio.
      "I don't want to say it's in its infancy," Rappaport says of the Boulder Strip, "but it's certainly not a mature market."
      As for Boulder Station, business has been off an estimated 7 percent since the June opening of Station Casinos' $198 million Sunset Station in Henderson.
      Despite the decline, Boulder Station continues to generate quarterly cash flow of $12 million, according to the company's most recently reported numbers, keeping it on par with the $48 million in cash flow generated at the site in 1996.
      "I think the good news here is we are four or five months since Sunset opened, and we truly proved we have grown the market," Rappaport says. "I think what happens is people don't realize how successful these properties are."