CAMPUS CORRESPONDENCE : Personal Feud Costs UNLV Its Basketball and Academic Reputation

This weekend, the NCAA men’s basketball tournament will be pared to the Final Four. For the first time in three years, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas will not participate.

The Runnin’ Rebels’ record, 26 victories against two losses, is not the reason. Rather, the basketball program is on probation for violating NCAA rules. It is also at the center of a controversy pitting an academically minded university president against the winningest coach in collegiate history. Meanwhile, student interests have suffered.

The charges against the Rebel basketball program were first made in the mid-’70s, when coach Jerry Tarkanian was accused of illegal recruitment practices. He went to court, arguing that the NCAA lacked the authority to bring the charges, let alone punish him. The case went to the U.S. Supreme Court, where Tark lost. His punishment caught up with him this year: No Rebel games televised during the 1991-92 season and no spot in any postseason playoffs.

But Tarkanian had other career problems. Relations between Tark and the university’s administration, headed by President Robert Maxson, have been strained, especially during the last two years. The ill will has been whipped by Maxson’s campaign to downplay the university’s reputation as a basketball power and play up its academic credentials. That’s not an easy task with Tarkanian on campus.

Then last May, the Las Vegas Review-Journal published a photograph of three of Tarkanian’s players sitting in a hot tub with a convicted sports fixer. In June, 1991, Tarkanian announced that he would resign this year. Reportedly, he has been pressured to quit by Maxson.

Last month, the Review-Journal, citing an unidentified federal official, reported that federal authorities were investigating, among other things, charges of point-shaving by Rebel players during the 1990-91 season. The report, however, turned out to be false. Tarkanian was incensed, accusing members of the university’s administration of having instigated the story. He withdrew his resignation Feb. 23.

The publication, in February, of “Shark Attack,” by Don Yaeger, an investigative journalist, further inflamed passions. The book charged that the UNLV administration had conspired to discredit Tarkanian and his program.

The dispute came to a head last Tuesday, when the University of Nevada board of regents narrowly defeated a proposal calling for an independent inquiry into the UNLV administration’s dealings with the basketball program. Tarkanian had backed the proposal, hoping the inquiry would clear his name. Maxson opposed it.

To an outsider, it might seem that neither basketball nor academics but soap opera is UNLV’s claim to fame. This justifiable perception feeds anxieties that a degree from UNLV is losing its value.

Students have not been apathetic about the issues behind the Maxson-Tarkanian fight. A survey published in the campus newspaper, the Rebel Yell, disclosed that 79% of the student respondents cared about the dispute’s outcome. But they feared that a lingering controversy would only serve to further taint their degrees.

The responsibility for much of this lies with the Maxson administration. Successful academics and successful athletics can coexist. Duke University is a case in point.

With five trips to the national semifinals in the last six years, Duke clearly has one of most successful basketball programs in the country. It is also regularly listed among the country’s top-10 academic institutions.

Maxson has made some strides toward building UNLV’s academic reputation. But his achievements are threatened.

To be sure, Tarkanian’s overwhelming popularity presented Maxson with a problem: Any move he made, even in the name of academic excellence, against the school’s basketball program risked alienating students and the community. But his apparent decision to keep his dealings with Tarkanian secretive has only made matters worse--UNLV is neither academically respected nor in the NCAA finals. This unhappy outcome might have been avoided had the question of how to remain a basketball powerhouse and build reputable academic credentials been openly debated within the university community.