Sunday, December 29, 2002
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Iron Mike still undisputed champ of notoriety

The top 10 local sports stories of 2002

By BRIAN VAN HOOK
REVIEW-JOURNAL

Even before Lennox Lewis could knock him to the canvas, Mike Tyson was KO'd by the Nevada Athletic Commission, which refused his license request. The title fight was subsequently moved to Memphis, Tenn. Photo by Amy Beth Bennett. Oscar De La Hoya, right, settled his feud with fierce rival Fernando Vargas in the ring at Mandalay Bay in September. De La Hoya dominated in an 11th-round TKO that added Vargas' WBC belt to his own WBA super welterweight title. Photo by K.M. Cannon. UNLV running back Joe Haro sits in the dark at Sam Boyd Stadium, where a power failure brought the Rebels' Aug. 31 opener against Wisconsin to a premature end. The Badgers led 27-7 with 7:41 left when the lights went out and the game was called. Photo by K.M. Cannon.

Mike Tyson might not be the boxer he once was, but the former champion continues to be a top newsmaker.

Tyson, whose numerous brushes with the law include a rape conviction, this year lost a decision to the Nevada Athletic Commission to regain his boxing license, then lost badly to Lennox Lewis after their heavyweight championship fight was moved to Memphis, Tenn.

His story was voted the top sports story of the year by the Review-Journal's sports staff, easily outdistancing the strong NASCAR season of Las Vegas native Kurt Busch, who won three of the final five Winston Cup races and finished third overall in the points standings.

Tyson and Lennox Lewis were to meet April 6 at the MGM Grand for Lewis' WBC and IBF titles, but Tyson no longer held a boxing license in the state. What might otherwise have been a routine approval from the commission became uncertain in the wake of a Jan. 22 news conference in New York called to promote the fight.

Tyson appeared to initiate a brawl involving the fighters and their entourages, and Lewis said Tyson bit him on the thigh in the melee. Before order was restored, Tyson also grabbed his crotch and shouted obscenities toward members of the media.

When the commission met Jan. 29, Tyson found little sympathy. The commissioners, after a 2 1/2-hour hearing, voted 4-1 against renewing his license.

Promoters shopped the fight to various places, including California, Texas and Washington, D.C., before striking a deal for June 8 at the Pyramid in Memphis.

Tyson, the undisputed world champion in 1987 and WBA-WBC titleholder in 1996, fared no better once inside the ring, losing badly in an eighth-round knockout.

The rest of the top 10:

2. Kurt Busch in fast lane

Going into the 2002 season, Busch had run 42 races and still sought his first victory. It came on March 24 in the Food City 500 in Bristol, Tenn., though not without controversy.

Busch lost the lead to Jimmy Spencer with about 56 laps to go, only to regain it after bumping Spencer out of the way, fueling angry feelings and post-race verbal sparring. Busch said he was getting back at Spencer for a similar incident in a 2001 race.

Busch, 24, ended the season as the Cup circuit's hottest driver, winning the Old Dominion 500 on Oct. 20, the NAPA 500 on Oct. 27 and the season-ending Ford 400 on Nov. 17. That led his charge from 12th to third in the points standings.

3. De La Hoya settles 'Bad Blood'

Next was Oscar De La Hoya's victory over Fernando Vargas in a battle of feuding fighters.

Neither boxer would disclose the origin of the hard feelings, which led to the Sept. 14 fight's promotion as "Bad Blood." Vargas, however, was more vocal in his "strong dislike" of De La Hoya. Vargas went so far as to say he would reveal what started the feud after the two met at Mandalay Bay.

On the line were De La Hoya's WBA super welterweight title and Vargas' WBC belt, and De La Hoya dominated, scoring an 11th-round technical knockout. Vargas, who never did give his reasons for the feud, later was fined $100,000 and suspended for nine months after samples from a post-fight urinalysis revealed steroids in his system.

4. Lights go out on Rebels opener

UNLV's season-opening football game on Aug. 31 was one to remember, but not for reasons Rebels fans liked. The game ended prematurely when the lights went out at Sam Boyd Stadium.

UNLV was playing the Wisconsin Badgers, and much of the betting seemed to be on the visitors. Those gamblers appeared poised for a payoff, as Wisconsin led 27-7 in the fourth quarter.

But with 7:41 remaining, the stadium lost power. The game was called at that point, but the furor was just beginning.

Little-known among the betting public was a rule that a football game must go 55 minutes to become official. The Badgers and Rebels had played only 52:19, so all bets on the game were voided.

Amid speculation that the blackout might have been orchestrated to avoid losses on the game by the gaming industry, Nevada Power said a splice failure in a cable caused the outage and was repaired by about 4 a.m. the next day.

5. Spoonhour guides UNLV to NIT

Next is Charlie Spoonhour's first season coaching the UNLV basketball team.

Spoonhour, lured out of retirement when efforts to hire Rick Pitino, among others, failed, inherited a team of former coach Bill Bayno's players.

The Rebels were 8-7 after a Jan. 15 loss at Brigham Young, but then won 10 of their last 12 to end the regular season at 18-9. The only losses in that span were in overtime at New Mexico and a four-point defeat at Wyoming.

In the Mountain West Conference Tournament at the Thomas & Mack Center, UNLV survived a three-overtime thriller against New Mexico, then defeated Utah, before losing a nail-biter game -- and a shot at the NCAA Tournament -- to San Diego State in the title game.

The Rebels also made some noise in the National Invitation Tournament, defeating Arizona State at the Thomas & Mack before losing in the second round at South Carolina.

6. Jason Thomas' struggles continue

UNLV's football team was pinning its hopes on quarterback Jason Thomas playing like he did in 2000, when the Rebels went 8-5 and defeated Arkansas in the Las Vegas Bowl, not 2001, a dismal 4-7 season.

Those hopes diminished quickly, starting with a loss to Wisconsin, and continuing in equally bad blowout losses at Oregon State and Toledo in the third and fourth games.

Thomas' low point might have come in a Week 6 homecoming game against New Mexico. The Rebels, 2-3, were coming off a victory over UNR and facing a Lobos team that was down to its third-string quarterback, who began the season as a defensive reserve. Instead, UNLV lost 25-15, and an ineffective Thomas was pulled late in the third quarter to a chorus of boos. Backup QB Kurt Nantkes began to see more action the rest of the season, though Thomas remained the starter.

The Rebels finished the season 5-7.

7. Rebels stumble off the field, too

While the football team struggled on the field, it also made news off the field.

In February, Troy Mason and DeJhown Mandley and ex-Rebel Andre Hilliard were arrested on charges of destruction of private property. They were accused of using baseball bats to damage a North Las Vegas home, where a fistfight involving UNLV players was alleged to have happened the night before.

The charges were dropped when the arrested players agreed to make restitution, but the incident gave a black eye to coach Robinson, whose tenure as athletic director began Jan. 1.

Robinson also found controversy after the Nov. 2 home game against Wyoming, a thrilling 49-48 overtime win for the Rebels.

The Review-Journal reported the next day that UNLV assistant head coach John Jackson left the game in the last few minutes of regulation to attend the featherweight boxing match between Marco Antonio Barrera, whom Jackson promotes, and Johnny Tapia.

The Rebels led Wyoming 42-28 at one point, and still led 42-34 when Jackson departed, later saying he and Robinson had discussed the possibility of Jackson leaving early. Robinson denied the topic ever came up, and said his assistant "made a bad decision," though he said the times of the football game and boxing match were both changed, and originally would not have been in conflict.

8. Tarkanian calls it quits

Jerry Tarkanian, the winningest coach in the history of UNLV basketball and one of the strongest critics of the NCAA, retired from Fresno State in March.

Tarkanian, who won 509 games in 19 seasons, guided the Rebels to their only NCAA championship, in 1990. UNLV made three other Final Four appearances under Tarkanian.

His 31-year coaching record is 778-202, a .794 winning percentage, compiled at Long Beach State, UNLV and Fresno State.

Tarkanian, 72, announced his retirement after his Fresno team completed a 19-15 season with a loss to Temple in the first round of the National Invitation Tournament. The team endured injuries and NCAA suspensions and fell one win short of giving Tarkanian his 30th 20-win season.

9. Schwikert captures national title

Expectations were high for gymnast Tasha Schwikert in 2002 after her 2001 national title. The Las Vegan delivered.

Schwikert easily won the U.S. Gymnastics Championship in Cleveland, defeating second-place Tabitha Yim by nearly a full point, a considerable margin in gymnastics competition.

10. Gators golf; NASCAR race

Green Valley's girls golf team set a national record for unbeaten success, winning its 129th straight match in a span of 11 years. It initially was thought that the Gators set the record Oct. 1 in a win over Coronado, though it was later learned that the mark wasn't theirs until the following match against Silverado two days later.

The Gators capped their season with a state championship.

NASCAR made its yearly visit to Southern Nevada in record-breaking fashion as well. Sterling Marlin won this year's UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400 on March 3 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, and the announced attendance of 137,500 is believed to be the largest at a single sporting event west of Texas.

VOTING

Tyson denied license (133 points); Busch's strong season (78); De La Hoya-Vargas (75); Sam Boyd power failure (72); Spoonhour's first season (64); Jason Thomas' struggles (63); UNLV football's off-the-field woes (62); Tarkanian retires (50); Schwikert wins (43); Green Valley golf/NASCAR in Las Vegas (tied with 28).