Fatal crash causes road rage prior to UNLV football opener

At around 2:50 p.m. Thursday, two vehicles crashed in the intersection of South Boulder Highway and East Russell Road. A power box was struck; traffic signals were knocked out.

A passenger in one of the vehicles was killed.

Four hours later, after Jackson State had kicked off to UNLV in a college football season opener, football fans and other people still were sitting in traffic on Boulder Highway and Galleria Drive and Broadbent Boulevard and Wiesner Way. They were trying to access the dusty parking lots at Sam Boyd Stadium in a roundabout way.

Judging from the gravel spewing from their tires when they were told to turn around by men wearing yellow traffic vests, they did not appear happy.

They probably didn’t know about the fatality — that it wasn’t UNLV’s fault this time.

“In my 20 years here, we’ve never had to close Russell Road right in our crunch time,” stadium director Mike Newcomb said. “Maybe a lane or two during construction …”

But never a total roadblock.

Russell Road is the main artery into Sam Boyd Stadium. Newcomb said about 80 percent of stadium traffic uses that intersection at Boulder Highway on game day.

“At 7:45 p.m., the (traffic) lights were still out,” he said.

It appeared most fans were seated by 8 p.m., about the time the second quarter started. This reporter hoofed it to the press box — via Broadbent and a parking spot in front of a house for rent in Silverlyn Heights — having missed only the first three minutes of the game.

By then the Rebels already had scored two touchdowns (!) on their way to a 63-13 victory.

Newcomb said it probably was a good thing it was a blowout and that the Rebels weren’t playing Wisconsin or somebody like that. Only 18,575 attended the season opener and many left early, which helped egress with the traffic lights still blinking red.

“With the fatality, I’m sure Metro had a protocol they had to go through,” Newcomb said in applauding the authorities for their cooperation and apologizing to football fans for the inconvenience.

But when it rains, it pours.

In addition to the terrible accident and terrible traffic snarl, a late afternoon thundershower turned a low spot on Broadbent Boulevard near the stadium into a small lake. A landscape truck came zipping through, sending a giant plume of stagnant rain water geysering into the air.

A couple of football fans who had been mired in traffic and were walking the final half-mile or so to the stadium flashed a certain finger.

“We’re No. 1,” I guess.

RIO REDUX

I’ve heard from two more locals back from Rio de Janeiro who say they also had a better Olympic experience than Ryan Lochte and his pals.

“We didn’t win the gold we wanted but we won more medals (five) than any other country in freestyle,” said Mark Philippi, UNLV’s former strength and conditioning coach who performed a similar role for the Azerbaijan wrestling team.

Joseph Peila of Henderson, a water polo referee, said the Olympics were even grander than imagined — even if the water polo pool turned green from a chemical reaction and had to be drained before synchronized swimming.

“I whistled the men’s quarterfinal, semifinal and fifth-place game,” Peila said. “I had a successful tournament.

“Athletes are not the only ones who dream about participating in the Olympic games. It truly was an honor to be selected as the United States water polo referee. It was an amazing experience.”

ACING THE ESSAY

Chloe Henderson, an 18-year-old Las Vegas tennis enthusiast representing the Marty Hennessy Inspiring Children Foundation, was one of 10 winners among more than 2,800 hopefuls who submitted entries in the 18th annual Arthur Ashe Essay Contest.

Henderson was feted at Kids’ Day at the U.S. Open and attended a luncheon at the Yale Club of New York City presided over by James Blake, the world’s former No. 4-ranked player and winner of the inaugural 2006 Tennis Channel Open in Las Vegas. Former New York City Mayor David Dinkins also posed for photos.

“She just left for her freshman year at Williams College (Massachusetts) where she will play for the tennis team,” Hennessy Foundation co-founder Ryan Wolfington said.

CARDS CUT WILLIAMS

Kerwynn Williams, the overachieving running back who played at Valley High School, was among the final players cut by the Arizona Cardinals on Friday. Arizona apparently has a lot of depth at running back and Williams got lost in the shuffle during training camp. Which to him must sound all too familiar.

That was more or less his story at Valley, too, at least for a time, and then at Utah State where he sat on the bench for most of his first three seasons before becoming an all-Western Athletic Conference running back and graduating with a marketing degree.

In his last game for the Aggies, in the Humanitarian Bowl in Boise, Idaho, Williams fumbled with 7:28 left that led to a field goal that pulled Toledo within 13-9. He made amends by scoring three touchdowns after that en route to piling up a career-high 235 rushing yards as Utah State won easily.

So Kerwynn Williams, who came out of nowhere, or at least the Cardinals’ practice squad, to put up a 100-yard rushing game against Kansas City in 2014, has overcome adversity before.

It wouldn’t be a big surprise if he does it again.

ANDERSON IMPRESSES

The last time I spoke with Tyler Anderson, the Spring Valley High School product’s baseball career seemed in limbo. He was headed toward Gallup, New Mexico, last summer. Limbo and Gallup are not exactly the same thing, but they usually are not a good combination.

The left-hander was driving alone. He was on his way to joining other Colorado Rockies farmhands — noninjured ones — in Albuquerque. He was recovering from arm surgery; it seemed it was taking forever.

On Wednesday, Anderson pitched 6⅓ scoreless innings during a 7-0 victory over the Dodgers. In his start before that one, he struck out 10 Milwaukee Brewers, a career high.

When manager Walt Weiss took Anderson out of the game Wednesday, the Rockies’ 2011 first-round draft choice left Coors Field to a standing ovation. He’s 5-5 with an earned-run average of 3.43 in 15 starts since being called up from Albuquerque.

Gallup is in his rearview mirror. So, it would appear, is Albuquerque. Last summer must seem like a million miles away.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow him on Twitter: @ronkantowski.