When word got out that Chris Beard was going to be the new UNLV basketball coach, a 45-year-old man from Las Vegas named Che’ Jones wrote a letter and attached a resume about his dream. He wants only to be an assistant basketball coach at UNLV.
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Two days after their coach was fired midway through his fourth season, having lost six of their previous eight games and sitting at 0-3 to begin Mountain West play, UNLV basketball players were implored by their new leader to run.
When UNLV opened the college football season Sept. 5 in a cornfield outside of Chicago, the Rebels covered the spread against Northern Illinois in a resounding fashion. They were driving toward more respectability — and perhaps even a touchdown and an attempt at a game-tying 2-point conversion — when Blake Decker threw a fourth-down pass to Devonte Boyd.
UNLV basketball coach Dave Rice spoke from a hallway adjacent to the Mendenhall Center’s practice courts, several of his players gathering inside that doorway as the likes of James Harden and Kevin Durant and Dwight Howard and Carmelo Anthony and Chris Paul competed in drills. They watched every dribble, soaked in every pass.
An issue that has tormented the Rebels for most of the Mountain West season did them in again Thursday, when UNLV emerged from its locker room at intermission and promptly gave up a six-point lead, watching helplessly as San Diego State opened the second half on a 12-0 run.
There is another slogan. It’s not about running this time.
The grave had been dug and the coffin prepared, but Rich Ryerson held one final hope that might preserve life. There probably wasn’t enough money in the budget for a headstone.
UNLV lost 48-34, but the Rebels were driving late with another chance to tie before a tipped pass was intercepted in the end zone. Give UNLV tons of credit for hanging in there.
It looks like a monolith carved from mortar and molded of chrome, a giant spaceship in the middle of the UNLV campus.
The conversation between the head coach (Tim Chambers) and a Sacramento (Calif.) City College transfer (Pat Armstrong) went something like this: