Former UNLV coach Harvey Hyde shares a Randall Cunningham story

You know that feeling you get when you wash your jeans, and you put them back on, and when you reach inside the pocket you discover a $10 bill that survived the rinse cycle?

Well, add about five zeros to that, and it would roughly estimate how Harvey Hyde felt when he was named UNLV football coach, and spotted Randall Cunningham at the first team meeting.

Cunningham already was here when Hyde arrived, having been recruited by Tony Knap. He blossomed under Hyde — for proof, check your local listings during the holidays when one of the classic sports networks almost always replays UNLV’s 30-13 victory over Toledo in the 1984 California Bowl.

Randall Cunningham was nearly as magnificent as Harvey Hyde’s hair.

To mark the former UNLV great’s induction into the College Football Hall of Fame this week, the Rebels’ ol’ ball coach was asked if he had a Randall Cunningham story to share.

He shared several. He said he could tell Randall stories from now until kickoff of the TaxSlayer Bowl, Georgia Tech vs. Kentucky.

One occurred on NFL Draft day. The coach and the quarterback were monitoring the selections in Hyde’s office. There wasn’t big hoopla then, or a big draft party to go to — if it wasn’t for ESPN needing programming in those days, the NFL Draft wouldn’t have been televised.

It’s still hard to fathom that Randall Cunningham wasn’t selected in the first round. No QBs were taken in the first round that year.

The coach recalled his quarterback becoming disillusioned.

“They’re not gonna draft me, coach.

“I’m leaving.

“I’ll be at the mall …”

Shortly after Cunningham left for the food court, Harvey Hyde’s phone rang.

It was Lynn Stiles, a Philadelphia Eagles assistant coach.

Stiles wanted to chat about Randall Cunningham. The Eagles’ man sounded very serious, Hyde said, as if his job were on the line if Philadelphia selected the QB/P from Nevada-Las Vegas, as UNLV often was referred to then, and he didn’t pan out.

“You should be fired if you don’t pick him, ” Hyde said.

Lynn Stiles called back. He asked to speak to Randall Cunningham, QB/P, who Philadelphia had just selected in the second round with the 37th overall pick of the 1985 NFL Draft.

“He’s not here,” Harvey Hyde said.

“He’s at the mall, shopping.”

Instead of a cap and a jersey and a round of applause from any Eagles fans who may have crashed the ballroom at the Omni Park Central Hotel in New York City, the great Randall Cunningham on draft day may or may not have received an Orange Julius from the kid working the counter at Boulevard Mall.

The rest, as they say, is history.

RASHAAN SALAAM, 1974-2016

The father of Rashaan Salaam, the 1994 Heisman Trophy winner who on Monday was found dead in a park not far from Folsom Field in Boulder, Colo., where he had starred for the Colorado Buffaloes, has ties to Las Vegas.

Sultan Salaam was known as Teddy Washington when he played football for San Diego State, and one game for the Cincinnati Bengals in 1968, and on semipro teams here. It is believed he still resides in North Las Vegas.

Rashaan Salaam’s mother, Khalada, told USA Today that Boulder police suspect the former Colorado star took his own life, and that a note was found.

At the funeral before Rashaan’s burial, Sultan Salaam said his son had a “mental breakdown.” He asked others to find inspiration in his son.

“Do your best. That’s what Rashaan did,” Salaam’s father told USA Today. “He went to the top. Go to the top.”

THUNDER ON PEARL HARBOR

This week’s retrospectives on the 75th anniversary of a “Day Which Will Live in Infamy” brought back a sports memory of an unlimited hydroplane race held in the shadow of the USS Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor.

The first one was in 1990. We were transported to the race course by ferry; we were told we were among the first civilians allowed onto Ford Island since the bombing.

The Budweiser Clydesdales also were onboard.

If memory serves, Miss Budweiser and driver Tom D’Eath won the race, and the hydroplane media took full advantage of the free bar tab at the Outrigger Hotel.

When some of us visited the Arizona Memorial the next day, we looked down through Plexiglas at 1,102 watery graves.

I recall seeing tangles of seaweed, and the faint outline of what had been a great battleship.

I remember being emotionally moved like never before.

JUMPING THE TARK

Lady Rebels coach Kathy Olivier this week posted a photo on her Twitter account of her players surfing in Hawaii. This brought back the time when some of the men’s players, back in the glory days under Jerry Tarkanian, went surfing, then were accused of not returning their rented boards.

Hawaii Five-O and NCAA gumshoes investigated.

The incident was recalled in a 2012 Playboy magazine retrospective on the old Rebels.

“ … Tarkanian’s players swore they got a bad rap. Who else would get blamed when several surfboards went missing during a trip to Hawaii? As Tark recalls, “The hotel just said some black guys stole them, and the NCAA decided to suspend a couple of my players.” One protested, “Coach, we don’t even swim!”

TAKING A KNEE

■ Partly due to an ongoing dispute with DirecTV, the Pac-12 network is reaching only 12 million to 14 million homes of a potential 113.4 million across the U.S., according to a published report. In a related note, I still miss the mtn. network, and the dulcet tones of football analyst Todd Christensen.

■ National League Most Valuable Player Kris Bryant of the Chicago Cubs (by way of Bonanza High School) has signed what is being called “a record-breaking MLB shoe deal” with adidas said to be worth more than $1 million per year for the next 10. This means Bryant probably won’t be wearing the new avant-garde Under Armour cleats expected to be in vogue when MLB switches equipment suppliers in 2020.

■ For the man on your shopping list who seemingly has everything, Las Vegas resident and “Baddest Man Under the Christmas Tree” Mike Tyson is selling “Merry Chrithmith” sweaters (actually, they appear to be sweatshirts) with his likeness on front for $39.99. You can get yours here: http://tinyurl.com/zhcdnh3.

Contact Ron Kantowski at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow @ronkantowski on Twitter.