Rebels go extra yards for high school teachers, administrators

A few minutes before noon Monday at Desert Pines High School, Tim Hough was standing in a long room that contained a long table outside the principal’s office.

UNLV’s nickelback, a former Desert Pines Jaguar, was holding a gift basket with the following contents: two UNLV football posters, two UNLV T-shirts, two tickets to Saturday’s game against Idaho, one green apple. The apple appeared more ripe than the tickets for the Idaho game.

Hough appeared nervous, as if it were 3rd and long up in Mount Pleasant on Saturday afternoon and Central Michigan had just sent extra wideouts onto the field to run post patterns.

He was asked if he had ever been sent to the long room with the long table for detention or anything like that. No, he said with a bashful smile.

A minute or so later a woman with blonde hair wearing glasses, a burgundy blouse and black slacks walked through the door. This was Kristine Korth, Tim Hough’s guidance counselor at Desert Pines. Hough handed her the gift basket with the free tickets and the green apple. The two embraced.

“You’ve made the most impact on my life,” the Rebels’ nickelback said.

Ms. Korth choked back tears.

“This kid is such an inspiration,” she said to eavesdropping reporters.

This was all part of the College Football Playoff Foundation’s “Extra Yards for Teachers,” a program celebrating the impact high school teachers have on student-athletes at schools not named North Carolina. Similar meetings were taking place at Bishop Gorman and Palo Verde High between football Rebels and the teachers who had inspired them.

One of the UNLV sports information guys said Tim Hough actually had a pretty good game at Central Michigan, Chippewas quarterback Cooper Rush’s six touchdown passes in a 44-21 rout of the Rebels notwithstanding.

But were it not for Ms. Korth, there’s a good chance he never sets foot on the field at Kelly/Shorts Stadium.

It’s about a 2 1/2-hour drive down Interstate 96 from Mount Pleasant, which has been described as tranquil; to Detroit, which has never been described as tranquil. Before he transferred to Desert Pines, Tim Hough attended Redford High School in Detroit.

His grades, like the Rebels’ secondary at CMU, were not terribly impressive.

The Desert Pines coaches came to Kristine Korth and said the new kid in town was a pretty good football player, perhaps good enough to earn a scholarship, if he had the grades. Ms. Korth and Tim Hough worked together; when Ms. Korth made a mistake and posted the wrong grade alongside Tim’s name on a grid she kept, Tim would tell her about it.

When Hough enrolled at Desert Pines before his junior year, his grade-point average was 1.8. When he graduated it was 3.0 in the core classes. He’s still getting good grades as a UNLV sophomore.

“I didn’t have the best grades when I transferred here but she helped me get it right,” he said.

“Tim, from the minute I met him, I knew he was special,” Ms. Korth said. “I mapped out what he needed to do; it was a lot. And he was like, on a mission. It was ‘No more C’s, Tim, it’s got to be as many A’s and B’s as you can get.’ And he did it.”

Tim Hough and Kristine Korth were still chatting when the eavesdropping reporters left. Out in the commons, Desert Pines students were making their way back to class, where it’s still possible to turn a lousy GPA into a college scholarship, if you are willing to seek out your guidance counselor, and work at what she tells you, and take pride in where you stand on her depth chart.

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