LEAVING Las Vegas. Ending Vegas
‘vacation’ right
move for UHOK, so it was with a thinner wallet. So what? The idea is to have fun at the gaming tables, right? I figure I, along with the thousands of island residents who go there often, can't be wrong.
My trip to Vegas was ostensibly to take part in the Hi-Cal golf tournament, hosted by the California Hotel, although I doubt there's another place I could be persuaded to play golf in 108-degree heat.
That University of Hawaii head coach Fred vonAppen was scheduled to speak to the media at the WAC football meetings at the MGM Grand was an added inducement.
Of course, vonAppen chose not to say much, giving what amounted to a football filibuster so that he didn't have to take part in a Q&A with the media. "Damn," said one of the sportswriters on hand, "he's the only coach I know who can include a movie review in his talk."
VonAppen, by the way, isn't enamored with Las Vegas.
"It's the Sin Capital. I don't gamble and I don't golf. The rocks turn interesting colors, though," he said.
But vonAppen admits that if he should ever go into camel ranching when he retires, his desert location of choice would be a tossup between Las Vegas and the Sudan.
VONAPPEN wasn't the only Rainbow coach there last week. Les Murakami, Riley Wallace and Vince Goo also were on hand. So what was any self-respecting sportswriter to do but go to Las Vegas, which was a WAC-happening place.
But maybe not for long with UNLV joining seven other schools in breaking away from the Western Athletic Conference as we know it.
The fracturing of the 16-team WAC was the buzz of the football coaches and media get-together. The coaches didn't say much, other than that the decision by the school presidents was strictly business. And football.
Little thought was given to the ramifications in basketball, especially regarding the share of the NCAA postseason money. And, according to Murakami, the problem it will create for San Diego State in baseball.
"They've (the Aztecs) got to go to cold climate and play schools who have no power rating," Murakami said.
San Diego State definitely will miss playing Hawaii and two California rivals, Fresno State and San Jose State, in baseball.
Murakami and Wallace fully support UH president Kenneth Mortimer's stance of not scheduling the eight defectors in the future. For lack of a better name, I like what San Jose State coach Dave Baldwin called the secessionists -- "The Crazy 8."
THE feeling that came out of the WAC session was that Air Force, Utah and UNLV all wanted to continue scheduling Hawaii in the future. As for BYU, who knows? Some of the media thought it was BYU that played the biggest behind-the-scenes role in causing the split, not Colorado State or Wyoming.
UNLV head football coach Jeff Horton was flabbergasted that Hawaii turned down a 10-year home-and-home series beginning in the year 2000 with his Rebels. An appropriate nickname, by the way.
"I don't know why the president (Mortimer) would want to alienate those schools because you don't know how the landscape is going to change over the next few years," Horton said.
No doubt the UH-UNLV rivalry is a natural for the two tourist destinations, as Horton argued.
Unfortunately, a lot of people have it ass-backwards. If anybody did any alienating, it certainly wasn't UH.
I'm going to miss not going to Las Vegas to watch the Rainbows play -- if Mortimer sticks to his guns, which I hope he does.
Call it grieving Las Vegas. But then, there's always golf and gambling.