And though young Chase Elliott has shown great speed, and great promise, he’s only 28th in points heading into this weekend’s NASCAR Sprint Cup race in Phoenix.
Ron Kantowski
Ron Kantowski is a sports columnist for the Las Vegas Review-Journal, covering a variety of topics and the Las Vegas sports scene.
rkantowski@reviewjournal.com … @ronkantowski on Twitter. 702-383-0352
At the same time UNLV called a news conference to announce that Dave Rice had been fired — er, came to a “mutual agreement” with his athletic administration that he would step down as Rebels basketball coach — people were parking their cars and SUVs for “Disney on Ice” at the Thomas & Mack Center.
When it was announced the new MGM/Anschutz Entertainment Group arena being shoehorned in between New York-New York and the Monte Carlo would be called T-Mobile Arena, hardly anybody complained.
Before Thursday, the only time I had spoken with Vlade Divac was years ago. It was Vlade, local radio personality Seat Williams and me sitting in a tiny radio station DJ cubicle.
When he died of natural causes at age 84 on Sunday, people started telling stories about The Giffer again. Actually, when you think about it, they never really stopped telling them. This is a tribute to Frank Gifford — that long after his playing career, it seemed he always was relevant.
It remains to be seen if Jason Pierre-Paul and C.J. Wilson will play this fall after losing digits in fireworks mishaps over the Fourth of July. But athletes are tough, and others have played without all their fingers.
Jennifer Ruiz Williams, who was born in Corona, Calif., and played for UNLV from 2001 to 2004, was running on a treadmill when she got this crazy idea: playing women’s soccer for Mexico in the World Cup might be fun. She played against Colombia on Tuesday.
On the same day investigative findings about the Patriots under-inflating footballs were disclosed and everybody went nuts, NASCAR, as only coincidence would dictate, rendered a final ruling about one of its top teams under-inflating tires. Exactly nobody went nuts.
Rugby players from around the world return to Las Vegas next month. Before the fast-paced action begins on the field — and in the stands — the organizers have to turn the turf football field at Sam Boyd Stadium into a rugby pitch with skinny goalposts, touch and try lines — and living grass.
Mental blunder takes touchdown off the board, gives Oregon one instead.
Mike Kennedy is a collector of baseball things: cards, bats, anything once belonging to Mike Trout of the Angels, because Kennedy is a longtime Halos fan and Trout is his favorite player.
Lori Harrigan-Mack, former UNLV softball star and three-time Olympic gold medalist, gets back into shape on “The Biggest Loser: Glory Days.” And former Eldorado lineman Howard “Woody” Carter also takes the challenge.
If the Indy 500 is the ultimate test of man and machine, the 13 Hours of Las Vegas for $500 race cars was the ultimate test of man, machine and a limited budget.
Bob Welch, the ballplayer, who won 27 games during the 1990 baseball season and battled alcoholism, was just 57 years old.
When NCAA schools were jumping conferences almost daily for a little wider sliver of NCAA pie a couple of years ago, I recall speaking to then-UNLV athletic director Jim Livengood about it.
