Rodeo to Rebels, a year of big stories in sports

Can I get a yee-haw?

One of the major local sports stories of 2014 actually had its origin in December of 2013 when some high-placed pardners in the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association voted 6-3 to enter into a Memorandum of Understanding to move its giant dog and pony show, especially the pony part, to Florida.

At the time, the pardners at the Convention and Visitors Authority who put on cowboy hats and Western duds for photo ops each December weren’t sure what a Memorandum of Understanding was, or what it meant.

But they said if it meant rodeo people were serious about moving to Florida, then they were serious about putting on their own dog and pony show in December, maybe with rhinestone cowboys or something. And then they called Michael Gaughan at South Point to make sure that was the proper strategy.

It was, because deadlines were pushed back, and then a couple of weeks later a new 10-year deal keeping the National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas was in place.

Keep them doggies movin’. Rawhide!

After bluffs were called and antes were raised, everybody around here breathed giant sighs of relief, because the people who come to the NFR spend a lot of money on Western duds and Jack Daniel’s and such, and they are known as excellent tippers.

UNLV football

The gridiron Rebels opened the year by participating in a bowl game, which was unheard of. They finished it by firing another coach, or at least by accepting his resignation under multiple tons of pressure.

So Bobby Hauck is out, having been replaced by Tony n’ Tina’s Wedding. That’s what one UNLV football loyalist called athletic director Tina Kunzer-Murphy’s bold decision to name Tony Sanchez of mythical national high school champion Bishop Gorman — the Gaels being a pretty good story in their own right — her new football coach.

In reality, this was a deal brokered by outgoing UNLV President Don Snyder and the deep pockets of Lorenzo Fertitta, a mixed martial arts enthusiast of some repute and a Tony Sanchez benefactor who supposedly has promised to build the Rebels a new weight room though everybody’s denying it.

Minor league sluggers

With Bryce Harper having injured himself while hitting .273 in 100 games with 13 homers, 32 RBIs and only one Gatorade commercial, it left room for a couple of his imitators to bust some of the same fences Harper had busted on his way up.

Splitting time between Double A and Triple A, former Bonanza High slugger Kris Bryant batted .325 with 43 homers and 110 RBIs as property of the Chicago Cubs. Joey Gallo, formerly of Bishop Gorman, hit .271 with 42 long flies and 106 batted in for Class A and AA teams in the Texas organization.

It was sort of remindful of when Yankees teammates Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle waged their famous long ball duel on black-and-white TV, except Bryant’s hair did not fall out and Gallo did not have a painful boil on his hip lanced, thereby ending his season.

Hockey coming and going

With steel girders now sticking out of the ground behind the MGM Grand, it would seem only a matter of time until Las Vegas finally gets its long-awaited sports arena, and an NHL team as its primary tenant, because ice hockey played in desert heat is a natural. Or, more likely, because the Arizona Coyotes need a rival within driving distance.

In an unrelated note, the minor league Las Vegas Wranglers got booted out of the Orleans Arena after 11 years, and initially said they would return in 2014-15 to play in a tent on top of a parking garage at the Plaza downtown.

When it was determined the Zamboni might come crashing through the tent and the parking garage thereby disrupting table games in the casino, the Wranglers were put into mothballs. They still insist it’s only temporary.

Kurt Busch doubles down

On the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend, Las Vegan Kurt Busch wriggled behind the wheel of a Indianapolis-style racecar and finished sixth in the Indy 500 to earn rookie of the year honors. Then he jetted to North Carolina to drive in that night’s NASCAR race in the Charlotte suburbs where the engine in his car blew up after 271 additional laps.

So while he did not succeed in completing auto racing’s vaunted double, a lot of people with grease under their fingernails compared Busch to A.J. Foyt and Mario Andretti, which isn’t a bad thing for one in the business of driving like a bat out of hell.

By the end of the racing season, Busch and his girlfriend had broken up, and Busch was later accused of putting the hammer down on her in a physical fashion behind closed motorhome doors at the track. By then, people who comment on things via social media had mostly forgotten about Kurt Busch’s excellent Sunday drive in May.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow him on Twitter: @ronkantowski.