Three hours, 37 minutes. That’s how far it is from the Cotton Bowl to North Shore High in Houston, from where some key UNLV football players will compete in the program’s first bowl game since 2000 on Wednesday to where they played for a prep program led by one of the winningest coaches in Texas history.
How many people around here wish UNLV were playing Arkansas or somebody like that in its bowl game on Wednesday morning? (Ooh! Ooh-Ooh! That was me raising my hand and doing an Arnold Horshack impression.)
When Kevin Olekaibe looks at his mother, the lessons of his favorite book — “To Kill a Mockingbird” — must be plain as day. When he watches her comb his father’s hair, brush his teeth, feed him, cleanse him, talk to him, read to him.
It was Dec. 15, 1984, and the Hawaiian Airlines charter, a DC-9, was sitting on the tarmac at the air terminal in Fresno, Calif., ready for takeoff.
The fifth straight win was as impressive as the previous four, which is to say UNLV’s basketball team has found a consistent rhythm in beating opponents it should. Teams that just aren’t very good.
He said it often the first month of this basketball season, said it after the 21-point home loss to UC Santa Barbara, after the close win against Nebraska-Omaha, after not getting it done against visiting Arizona State and Illinois, after playing tough but falling at Arizona.
Before Tuesday, the last time I saw David Hollis, who played defensive back for UNLV in the 1984 California Bowl, was 1994. He still was known as “Hot Dog” Hollis then.
You don’t accept a postseason game in 2013 to make money. You don’t agree to play North Texas in the Heart of Dallas Bowl on Jan. 1 with the idea your athletic department’s bottom line is going to realize a sudden influx of cash.
