Tarkanian Will Stay for One More Season : College basketball: UNLV coach reaches an apparent compromise with school.

In an apparent compromise worked out between Jerry Tarkanian and University of Nevada Las Vegas officials, Tarkanian will spend one more season as UNLV’s basketball coach before leaving the job he has held through nearly two decades of triumph and turmoil.

Tarkanian’s plans were announced Friday after two days of talks between Tarkanian and university President Robert Maxson.

Tarkanian’s program has been the subject of negative publicity on an almost weekly basis during the last few months--the most damaging item being the publication of photographs in the Las Vegas Review-Journal on May 26 showing former UNLV players Moses Scurry, David Butler and Anderson Hunt socializing with convicted sports fixer Richard Perry.

UNLV has also had to deal with an NCAA letter of official inquiry charging the basketball program with rules violations in 29 areas, many focusing on the recruitment of former New York high school star Lloyd Daniels. The university sent its response to the allegations to the NCAA last week and expects the case to be heard by the NCAA Committee on Infractions by late summer.

The infractions committee has already barred the Rebels from postseason competition and television appearances during the 1991-92 season as a final penalty in the infractions case that prompted Tarkanian to take the NCAA to court in 1977.

In his letter of resignation to Maxson, Tarkanian cited the toll that his long-running battle with the NCAA has taken on his family and indicated that the publicity generated by the Perry photos was the “final straw.”

Said Tarkanian in his letter: “I love this university and do not want to cause it any harm. In addition, although I have been toughened over the years by the pressures of these battles, the pain I now see in my children’s eyes makes me realize none of this is fun for anyone.”

Despite the strain, Tarkanian said he felt obligated to coach another season at UNLV because of his concern for his assistant coaches’ job opportunities at this point in the year and his determination to deal with the NCAA charges.

Tarkanian, who will turn 61 in August, denied reports that he will have an NBA front-office or coaching job waiting for him when he leaves UNLV.

“I love coaching, I really do,” he said. “But I’m getting older. I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

Tarkanian has two years remaining on a contract that pays him more than $400,000 a year in base salary and complimentary tickets to UNLV basketball games. However, under terms of the resignation agreement, the university will not be required to buy out the final year of the contract.

The university also will not be required to fulfill additional financial obligations to Tarkanian stemming from his position as a senior assistant athletic director and a tenured university employee, Maxson said.

“The truth of the matter is this is the way Jerry wanted to do it,” Maxson said. “This was his request to me, and I honored that request. . . .

“Coach did not ask for any money (in settling with UNLV). Coach voided the last year of his contract, gave up his (tenured) professorship and agreed to coach next year so we can have an orderly transition process.”

Still, the arrangement is, in effect, a middle ground for both Tarkanian, who in the past has steadfastly refused to step down, and Maxson, who since coming to UNLV in 1984 has attempted to upgrade the school’s academic reputation in the face of controversy generated by the basketball program.

“I think it was a good decision,” said Dennis Finfrock, UNLV’s interim athletic director. “I think what we did was in the best interests of all parties. It gives Coach Tarkanian a chance to work through the NCAA investigation, and it gives us a chance to work out a formal search (for a new coach).”

Names sure to surface in the Rebels’ hunt for a new coach are Georgetown Coach John Thompson, who visits Las Vegas frequently and owns property in the city, and Georgia Tech Coach Bobby Cremins, who was coaching at Appalachian State University in North Carolina when Maxson was a dean at that school 13 years ago.

Although UNLV has refused to make public its response to the NCAA’s letter of official inquiry, Maxson said Friday that the school has “vigorously” denied charges contained in the letter that Perry acted as a representative of UNLV’s interests in providing cash and other benefits to Daniels and Scurry.

The NCAA contends that Perry, a New York summer league basketball coach who has twice been convicted on sports bribery charges, became a representative of UNLV’s interests by acting as a middleman in the school’s recruitment of Daniels in 1986 and ’87.

Tarkanian has said that Perry has no ties to the UNLV program. Tarkanian has also said that he knew Perry only as “Sam” Perry, a commodities broker, and knew nothing of Perry’s gambling past until it was revealed in a Time magazine article in the spring of 1989.

As for the photos--reportedly taken near the start of the 1989-90 season, after Tarkanian was said to have warned his players to stay away from Perry--Maxson said Friday: “My hope is that was an isolated incident.”

No matter how UNLV’s dealings with the NCAA turn out, Tarkanian’s final season should be bittersweet. He must replace all five starters on last season’s team, which compiled an unbeaten regular-season record before losing to Duke in the national semifinals, and he faces a season outside the spotlight of TV and the NCAA tournament.

Tarkanian put a positive perspective on his predicament, noting that one of his reasons for wanting to coach another season was the challenge of working with five new starters.

But a sense of loss seemed to accompany his words when he was asked what he would do after next season.

“I have to figure out something I can do of interest, and I don’t have a lot of interests,” he said. “I’ll hit a few golf balls this year and see how that feels, maybe read a few books. I need to find something.”