I had read that Dartmouth, the little Ivy League school in New Hampshire with the big academic tradition, had sent 120 of its athletes to the Winter Olympics over the years. And though Dartmouth was founded in 1769, that still seemed like a lot.
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
It was going on 3 a.m. today, and Kevin McGlue, the play-by-play announcer for the Colorado Eagles, was in a station break after the Wranglers beat the guys he travels with 3-0 in the annual Midnight Circus hockey game at Orleans Arena.
It was March 2011, and the Lady Rebels had just beaten Utah in their regular-season finale. Three days later, they would play Utah again, in the first round of the Mountain West Tournament.
I’m watching women’s curling at the Winter Olympics. The skip from Sweden has just put the stone exactly where she had to put it on the last throw of the match.
It was about 10 years ago when some local soccer enthusiasts got this idea to put on a grand kids’ soccer tournament, figuring that if they did it right, kids from far and wide might come here to play.
If you have been watching the Winter Olympics only in prime time, you may be under the impression these Games consist mostly of figure skating and the men’s and women’s half-pipe. And about 15 minutes of alpine skiing and/or short track speed skating, which is sort of like roller derby on ice.
A couple of years ago I went to the West Coast Conference Hall of Fame breakfast hoping to talk to Bo Kimble about shooting free throws left-handed and playing UNLV in the NCAA Tournament. I wound up talking mostly with NFL Hall-of-Famer Bob St. Clair.
Danica Patrick takes the high road after NASCAR legend Richard Petty says she was capable of winning a Sprint Cup race only “if everybody else stayed home.”
Amid the debate over whether the NFL is ready for an openly gay player, such as Michael Sam, remember that the great Vince Lombardi was, and Lombardi seemed like an old-fashioned guy if there ever was one.
Because I am of the opinion that most people take sports way too seriously, I am happy there are the Washington Generals, and that on their official website there is a photo of a chalkboard depicting the times they have lost to the Harlem Globetrotters.
You might not be able to get them on TV in Las Vegas, but the D-Backs show some love for their real hometown by donating $600,000 worth of uniforms to Phoenix-area Little Leagues.
On Friday night, the Las Vegas Wranglers wore hockey sweaters with the UNLV logo on front to benefit the Dave Rice Foundation. But if you wanted to watch actual UNLV students dump and chase the puck while wearing UNLV sweaters, you had to be at SoBe Ice Arena at the Fiesta Rancho on Friday and Saturday where the Rebels’ club hockey team was playing San Diego State.
On this night 50 years ago I was 7, gathered around a black-and-white TV set, watching “The Ed Sullivan Show.” That Ed Sullivan show. The one with the Beatles.
Before the gentlemen start their engines for the Boyd Gaming 300 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, before the announcers tell TV viewers to “crank it up” after coming back from a Chevy commercial — even before Kyle Busch makes another driver mad by passing in a place where one is not supposed to pass — somebody must first sing the national anthem.
Long before his 22-year run on “The Tonight Show,” our columnist found Jay Leno in Albuquerque, waiting to catch a flight to Farmington, N.M., to do stand-up comedy at the Best Western.
LISTEN TO THE TOP FIVE HERE