Before the season even started — it probably was a day or two after the Athlon college football preview magazine came out — football people who took a cursory glance at UNLV’s schedule said the Rebels could be 4-2 by now.
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
A few weeks ago, I was hiding out at the Central Michigan-UNLV football game at Sam Boyd Stadium — I figured that would be the last place the authorities would look — when Mark Wallington, the Rebels’ football information guy, said the UNLV marching band had formed a giant mustache down on the playing field.
When I heard UNLV had tacked on another year to Tina Kunzer-Murphy’s contract as UNLV’s interim athletic director, my first thought was good for her. My second thought was if this gets back to Pat Dye, he’s probably not going to like it.
When I got out of bed Monday, the Athletics and Tigers were getting ready to play a baseball game, in October, in broad daylight — or at least under a cloudy sky — in Detroit.
It was Friday morning at Cox Pavilion, and USA Basketball women’s national team mini-camp practice was winding down — or so I thought — when Diana Taurasi walked out as I was walking in. Taurasi apparently had some sort of business to attend to in the tunnel linking Cox Pavilion to the Thomas & Mack Center.
On Tuesday it will have been 20 years since a guy wearing a striped shirt with orange armbands skated into the center ice faceoff circle at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City with a hockey puck in his hand.
After the Kansas City Chiefs went to 3-0 on Thursday night, Peter King of Sports Illustrated named Chris Ault coach of the week in the NFL. King also alluded to the Chiefs keeping Ault’s benefactions on the down-low.
Think about it: A.J. Foyt, Al Unser and Rick Mears are the greatest Indy 500 drivers of all time. Each won four times. George Bignotti won seven Indy 500s as crew chief. He was the original Mr. Goodwrench.
If you think returning one of CoCo Vandeweghe’s 117-mph first tennis services is a chore, try writing about her without mentioning her family.
This is a story that begins on Easter Sunday, 1991. On that day, Darrell Gwynn, the popular NHRA drag racer from Florida, was doing exhibition runs in England when his Top Fuel dragster spun out of control and slammed into the wall at 240 mph.
A lot of Las Vegas movers and shakers wearing tailored blazers with open collars attended Wednesday’s Las Vegas Bowl kickoff luncheon at the Hard Rock Hotel, at a swanky restaurant called 35 Steaks + Martinis.
I am not a fan of reality television. Except, maybe, for the evening news. With that said, there’s much to like in “Flat Out,” the new AOL docu-series that focuses on Dylan Kwasniewski, the 18-year-old NASCAR phenom from Las Vegas who recently moved to the Charlotte, N.C., suburbs to accelerate his career.
During down time at the Hennessey’s World Paddle Championships at Lake Las Vegas on Saturday, they played a lot of Creedence Clearwater Revival over the public address system. They should have played the “Hawaii Five-O” theme by the Ventures, because this sport — stand-up paddleboard racing — looks like something you’d see during the opening credits of the TV detective series.
When most people think of the boxer Ken Norton, who lived out his final years in Henderson and died there last week, they probably think of his cross-armed, crab-like style of coming forward that gave some of the greatest heavyweights of his generation — of all time, really — major fits. Or they think of him breaking Muhammad Ali’s jaw at decrepit San Diego Sports Arena in the first installment of their indelible trilogy.
It was a sweaty day around the Fourth of July, and UNLV soccer coach Rich Ryerson was sitting inside a fireworks stand at Westcliff Drive and Durango. He was there out of necessity.
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