“I think you could make the point this was as good a week for UNLV golf as anybody can remember,” said Jack Sheehan, a longtime observer of the Las Vegas golf scene. “In ‘98 they won the (men’s) national championship, but I don’t think they even had a women’s program then. And then Hoffman shakes off the demons …”
If he wins games as quickly as he did the news conference, Marvin Menzies will have spun some magic as UNLV’s new basketball coach, a position solidified when the regents voted 12-1 in favor of approving his five-year contract.
I’m not sure on whose name the Ferris wheel will ultimately stop as UNLV’s next basketball coach, but the circus ride needs to be followed by a thorough, honest evaluation of the search process and those who directed the program to this point.
Most believe UNLV basketball coach Chris Beard will take the Texas Tech job. Why wouldn’t he? Why shouldn’t he? No one could have seen this coming.
When word got out that Chris Beard was going to be the new UNLV basketball coach, a 45-year-old man from Las Vegas named Che’ Jones wrote a letter and attached a resume about his dream. He wants only to be an assistant basketball coach at UNLV.
They made Chris Beard sit there for more than two hours while they discussed whether he was worthy of making $900,000 next season for drawing up X’s and O’s on his now famous dry eraser board, and $1.4 million a couple of seasons down the road, provided he is as successful here as he was at Arkansas-Little Rock last season.
UNLV officially has its coach and you couldn’t have hoped for a better opening message from him, one about building and winning and sustaining a level of success all the right ways, that the goal is not to get things done quickly but rather correctly.
In a town where there is no patience for its basketball program struggling in the least, a large dose is needed now as Chris Beard is set to officially assume control of UNLV on Friday.
