Sanford’s promises still ring hollow

Who could forget Mike Sanford's famous news conference at UNLV?

No, not that one. His news conference in December 2004 when Sanford was named the Rebels' football coach.

"Our expectation level should be, and my expectation level is, to win the Mountain West Conference championship, go to a bowl game and to be ranked in the top 20 in the nation every year," Sanford said.

Well, Rebels football fans - what few remain - know how that turned out.

Sanford went 16-43 in five seasons, though he did win five games each of his final two years. UNLV fans would take five wins next year when current coach Bobby Hauck enters his fourth season.

Sanford was hired last week at lower-level Indiana State, which is coming off three straight winning seasons for the first time since the 1960s.

"My job is to come in to do everything I can to push and place extremely high expectations and demands to win the Missouri Valley Conference and to win a national championship," Sanford told The (Terre Haute, Ind.) Tribune-Star.

Uh, oh. Be prepared, Indiana State fans, if Sanford blames "execution" rather than any coaching decisions should the victories not come.

And brace yourselves for that potential news conference in five or six years. You know, the one complaining about the Sycamores' locker rooms being the worst in the nation.

■ SEND HIM DOWN - UNR fans are furious about the Wolf Pack's unbelievable giveaway in Saturday's New Mexico Bowl.

They gave up two touchdowns in the final 46 seconds to lose what should have been a sure win over Arizona but instead became a 49-48 loss.

Some UNR fans wrote to the Reno Gazette-Journal that longtime coach Chris Ault is at fault. One even said Ault should be fired.

UNLV fans would send a limo and a private plane to lure Ault from Reno.

■ IS IT HALLOWEEN? - Six Iowa baseball players and one club hockey athlete have been living with two uninvited guests.

They said their home is haunted by an older man the players call "Tim" and a girl about 10 years old. Players said those spirits have made their presence known in the house, which they were told was a funeral home in the 1920s.

Players told The Daily Iowan they heard kitchen chairs move at night and girlfriends' underwear taken off while sleeping. Uh, yeah, ghosts did it.

But the players insist it's all true and even hired paranormal investigators, who agreed the athletes weren't alone.

"There was a time in the morning where someone was slamming the door, and we heard sprinting up the stairs," pitcher Aaron Smit told the newspaper. "Everyone assumed it was me, but I told them I was in bed."

The ghosts are friendly, the players said, but they decided not to renew their lease next year. They also decided not to try to rid the home of the visitors on their way out.

"I'm on Tim's good side," first baseman Bryan Niedbalski said. "I want to leave it that way."

COMPILED BY MARK ANDERSON
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL