Bad Publicity Cost Coach Hyde His Job at Nevada Las Vegas

Harvey Hyde always figured his job as Nevada Las Vegas football Coach would be safe as long as he continued winning. Little did he realize it would be the off-field activities of his players, not their game performances, that would be his eventual downfall.

Hyde was fired recent after four years as head coach, a victim of mounting bad publicity over the alleged criminal exploits of a few players and his own personal public relations problems. It was a move university officials said was needed to save the troubled football program from extinction.

“The program is bigger than any one of us,” UNLV President Robert Maxson said in announcing Hyde’s firing. “It seems to me there’s been a loss of confidence in the football program.”

In the end it was the continuing charges against various players, ranging from assault to burglary, that brought down Hyde. Hardly a week went by in the last three months that a Rebel football player wasn’t being charged with some kind of crime.

“It’s a terrible embarrassment to us,” Maxson said of the well-publicized escapades. “It embarrasses me personally, it embarrasses my faculty and staff.”

But in closer analysis the troubles had been brewing almost from the moment Hyde came on campus in 1982--and was promptly met by university regents trying to cut the football program because of mounting debts that threatened the athletic budget.

The program was saved, but limits were put on spending, with the football program funded at between $1.2 million and $1.5 million. It was enough money to compete in the Pacific Coast Athletic Assn., but not enough to bring the program up to the levels expected by fans spoiled by the success of the Runnin’ Rebel basketball program.

“People expect us to compete against the Michigans and the Wisconsins of the football world and we compete against some of them,” said athletic director Brad Rothermel. “They also expect us to win, and that’s awfully tough to do against teams who have budgets of $5 million or more.”

To compete, UNLV recruiters actively pursued the junior college market, looking for players who couldn’t qualify out of high school because of grades or other problems, but who could give the team two years of quality play at the Division I level.

But recruiters seldom looked past a player’s football talents, checking only closely enough to see if a combination of junior college grades and summer sessions would meet minimum admission requirements. What they ended up with were some players only marginally qualified for university life.

“It’s easier to ascertain athletic and academic skills than social behavior,” admitted Rothermel. “Our hope now is to do a more effective job of monitoring the social behavior of our student athletes when we recruit.”

The junior college recruiting brought other problems, too.

UNLV, led by now Philadelphia Eagle backup quarterback Randall Cunningham, had just finished an 11-2 season in 1984, winning the California Bowl and the PCAA conference crown. But because seven players were used that season who were eventually declared ineligible because of transfer and grade point rules, the team had to forfeit its wins and titles, and seven wins from the year before.

UNLV officials contended the rules violations were mere oversights, and the university was not further punished by the NCAA. It was, however, another public relations nightmare for Hyde.

“Again, it was a terrible embarrassment to the school,” said Maxson. “The rule is clear whether it’s a mistake or not a mistake. You play an ineligible player, you have to forfeit the game.”

Hyde may have seen the handwriting on the wall during the 1985 season, when crowds of fewer than 10,000 were commonplace in the 32,000-seat Silverbowl and the team finished an undistinguished 5-5-1. Counted separately in the athletic department’s budget, football lost huge sums of money.

Talk about discontinuing football continued, but the school needs the Division I-A status it gets from fielding a team to stay in the PCAA and be able to keep its very successful basketball team on a high national level.

“We would like to fill the stadium but I don’t think that’s going to happen quickly,” said Rothermel. “To accomplish that, you have to put a quality team out on the field. We have to bring it back to the level of the 1984 team for fans to respond consistently.”

That unenviable task has been placed, at least temporarily, on the shoulders of Wayne Nunnely, a former UNLV running back who is the second black head football coach among major schools. He was named interim coach through the upcoming season.

“We’re going to have to meet as a team and rally the wagons,” said Nunnely. “We’ve got to act like respectable adults and go out and win some football games.”

Doing both may be the only way to salvage this football program.