EDITORIAL: Tarkanian’s legacy secured

The list of true Las Vegas legends — the innovative, larger-than-life locals, good and bad, who personified the city and brought national attention to Southern Nevada — is shorter than you might think. Bugsy Siegel. Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack. Howard Hughes. Steve Wynn. A select few others.

And Jerry Tarkanian.

The former UNLV men’s basketball coach died Wednesday at Valley Hospital Medical Center at the age of 84. Over 19 seasons, he turned the previously unknown Rebels into the household name Runnin’ Rebels by reinventing the game. His high-scoring, high-pressure style of basketball changed the sport and united this community like nothing before or since. And his exit from the program divided this community like nothing before or since.

The Shark, as the towel-chomping coach was affectionately known, rang up an incredible 509-105 record at UNLV. He had only one season of less than 20 wins, just two seasons with double-digit losses and 12 years of 26 or more victories. In just his fourth year at UNLV, the 1976-77 season, the Runnin’ Rebels went 29-3 and advanced to the NCAA Tournament’s Final Four for the first time.

But the Shark really made his mark during a nine-season stretch, from 1982 to 1991. UNLV reached the NCAA Tournament every year. The Rebels advanced to the Final Four again in 1987, and finally put all the pieces together in the 1989-90 season, ending a 35-5 campaign with a record-setting, 103-73 blowout of Duke in the NCAA championship game.

“He had an uncanny ability to take star players and mold them into cohesive and selfless teams,” said coach Mike Krzyzewski, who is still at Duke today. “That is a testament to how well he related to his players. They adored him. As coaches, we admired him as well. His teams were a joy to watch, unless you were playing against one of them.”

The following year, his greatest team delivered his greatest disappointment. UNLV was the country’s top-ranked squad all season, going 34-0 before being upset by Duke in the national semifinals.

All the while, UNLV was under intense NCAA scrutiny. Mr. Tarkanian had a long-running feud with the governing body of major college sports, dating to his pre-UNLV days coaching Long Beach State. Mr. Tarkanian fought the NCAA like his team played: relentlessly.

In 1976, the NCAA tried to ban Mr. Tarkanian from contact with players for two years. He got a permanent injunction and sued, challenging the NCAA’s authority all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Many of his recruits were players other programs didn’t want, players Mr. Tarkanian felt deserved a second chance. Those players rewarded that trust by becoming fiercely loyal — and fiercely competitive.

On May 26, 1991, though, with UNLV just a couple months removed from the loss to Duke, the Review-Journal published photos of Richard “The Fixer” Perry sharing his backyard hot tub and playing basketball on his backyard court with three members of the 1990 championship team. Perry was a New York gambler who had been convicted in the Boston College basketball point-shaving scandal.

Mr. Tarkanian said he had no knowledge of the association between Perry and UNLV players. But less than two weeks later, the coach announced his resignation, working out an agreement that allowed him to stay on for the 1991-92 season, when the Rebels were banned from postseason play.

Mr. Tarkanian was almost solely responsible for UNLV’s national profile — positive and negative. He built the Thomas &Mack Center and filled it year after year after year. But his exit created a void that hasn’t been filled to this day. The men’s basketball program imploded in subsequent seasons and has made just one Sweet 16 appearance in the NCAA Tournament since Mr. Tarkanian left.

For years, the university kept the school’s most successful and recognizable figure at arm’s length. But 1998 marked a turning point in restoring the relationship. While finishing his coaching career at alma mater Fresno State, Mr. Tarkanian’s claims that he was unfairly targeted by NCAA scrutiny — that the body ignored improprieties at high-profile, large-school programs while crushing smaller schools with fewer resources despite the absence of evidence — were validated when the organization settled his lawsuit for $2.5 million to avoid a trial in Las Vegas.

“I just hope people will now realize that the accusations against me, 25 years worth of them, were unfounded and without evidence,” Mr. Tarkanian said after the settlement was announced. “They can never, ever, make up for all the pain and agony they caused me. All I can say is that for 25 years they beat the hell out of me.”

In 2005, the floor at the Thomas &Mack was officially dubbed Jerry Tarkanian Court. A statue of him sits outside the arena. Current UNLV coach Dave Rice (who played on the Rebels’ championship team) and his predecessors, Lon Kruger and Charlie Spoonhour, welcomed Mr. Tarkanian into the building.

And in 2013, after far too long, Mr. Tarkanian’s 784-202 record in 31 years of Division I coaching was rightly honored with induction into the National Basketball Hall of Fame.

His legacy here is unique. Mr. Tarkanian had none of the glamor projected by other Las Vegas legends, yet tickets to watch his teams were in such demand that the best seats became known as “Gucci row.” He reveled in both the city’s adoration for the Runnin’ Rebels and the villainous reputation attached to them outside Nevada. For a time, he was Mr. Las Vegas.

There will never be another Jerry Tarkanian.