Glory Days Again? : Nevada Las Vegas Is Counting on Tim Grgurich to Reclaim Success of Tarkanian Era While Leaving Its Problems Behind

The unopened bottle of slivovitz sits among the stacks of scouting tapes and phone messages covering Tim Grgurich’s modest little desk in his modest little office. There are two school-issued chairs, a TV, a VCR and, if you like concrete, a gorgeous window view of the Thomas & Mack Center parking lot.

Grgurich could have had Rollie Massimino’s old place down the hall, but the new Nevada Las Vegas coach won’t set foot in the room. Too strange, too soon and too much cherry wood. In fact, the joke going around the Runnin’ Rebel staff is that Grgurich wouldn’t mind sitting in the reception area and letting his secretary sit inside the Massimino museum.

“I want to talk to the people who donated all the money for the offices and see what they want to do with everything,” Grgurich said. “There’s enough area for a library for the players, enough area for a nice lounge for the players, the former players and former coaches. With their permission I’d like to do something in there.”

In other words, he would like to purge the memory of Massimino’s ill-fated two-year reign at UNLV and return it to the glory days--but with a Grgurich spin. Already he has

organized a search party to find the missing photos and trophies from the Jerry Tarkanian era--his era as a UNLV assistant--and start putting them on walls and in prominently placed glass cases.

“There’s a great tradition here,” said Grgurich, who spent 12 years on the Rebel staff before joining the Seattle SuperSonics after Tarkanian resigned in March 1992. “And the tradition should be continued.”

Which brings us to the slivovitz, plum brandy that goes down as easy as paint thinner. One of Grgurich’s buddies from the old neighborhood in Pittsburgh gave him the bottle as a present and custom dictates that it be opened on a special occasion.

When he was younger and the stomach stronger, Grgurich, 50, took a pop of the stuff every Christmas, or maybe toasted the birth of a child, or saluted a loved one at a wedding. Now he has a bottle of his own, but when to pour? After his first game, Monday night against Marquette in Milwaukee? After his first victory? His first good night’s sleep?

“Aw, it won’t be opened,” he said. “That’s pretty hard stuff.”

Pretty hard job, too. Hired in the aftermath of the Massimino mess, where a secret supplemental contract blew up in the faces of everyone involved--Massimino, former UNLV President Robert Maxson and soon-to-be-former UNLV Athletic Director Jim Weaver--Grgurich is here to restore order to the program.

Problem is, Grgurich has had only about five weeks to prepare for a season that will test his reputation, to say nothing of his patience. Here, hire a staff. Introduce yourself to those strangers on your roster. Recruit. Install your offense and defense. Conduct practices. Appease a community. Coordinate the academics. And by the way, win games, sell tickets and reach the NCAA tournament.

“Every day feels like a week,” Grgurich said. “I mean, I still wake up sometimes and I’m not sure if I’m in Seattle or UNLV. It’s a big transition and probably one of the hardest things we’ll have to do in our lives. It’s trial and error almost every day in our coaching.”

UNLV knows all about trials and errors. The school leads the league in lawsuits, litigation and knucklehead mistakes. There have been NCAA investigations, in-house investigations, suits and countersuits, NCAA sanctions, secret contracts, secret videotapes, lost games, lost fans, administrative mismanagement and a general public relations apocalypse.

Massimino was hired to create a new image, but instead he left his muddy footprints all over an already dirty carpet. In no time at all, Massimino, who was probably doomed from Day 1, managed to alienate an entire cross-section of UNLV supporters, staff and media.

He signed the secret supplemental deal. He battled the press. He made a series of amazing statements. He argued with fans. He vowed no player would embarrass the university and then found himself explaining alleged grade scandals and questionable player plane ticket purchases during his watch.

And there were little things, too. According to a source close to the team, Massimino, thinking he was talking to a simple staff member, once asked the wife of UNLV team trainer Jerry Koloskie if she would fetch his car in the pouring rain. Massimino didn’t want to ruin his alligator shoes. Koloskie’s wife did as asked, but the story soon became legend.

Massimino’s demise wasn’t all his doing. He had plenty of help from Maxson, now the president at Long Beach State, from Weaver and from the Tarkanian loyalists who did everything in their power to undermine him. But when details of a $1.8-million supplemental deal became public, UNLV interim President Kenny Guinn decided the program couldn’t survive with Massimino . . . or without Grgurich.

“I definitely think he’s the right man at this time,” said Guinn, who had never met Grgurich until the initial interview. “(UNLV basketball) is something very important overall to this community. We’ve had our problems. Now it’s just time to set the stage for the future.”

Grgurich, who signed a three-year deal worth about $900,000, is all for the future, but he isn’t much for stages or spotlights. When he was on Tarkanian’s staff, Grgurich always seemed to miss the annual team picture. And team banquets. Tarkanian, at the lectern, would turn to introduce his No. 1 assistant and there would be no Grgurich.

“He knew I was going to say something nice about him,” said Tarkanian, who credits Grgurich for extending his coaching career by years.

Grgurich hasn’t changed a bit. He instructed the UNLV sports information department to keep his picture off the cover of the media guide. And although he is cordial and friendly enough during interviews, he also glances at his watch a lot.

“Got a staff meeting to go to and then . . . “ he said.

His workday starts at 7 a.m. and ends at 11 p.m.--if he and his staff are lucky. There have been nights when Grgurich has slept on the office couch.

“Aw, all the coaches have done the same,” he said.

Told of the all-nighters by his former assistant, Tarkanian shook his head in amusement.

“That’s Tim,” said Tarkanian, who has attended a few UNLV practices at Grgurich’s invitation. “You watch, they’ll be back in the top 10 in no time, and all because of Tim. Tim is the only guy who could have done this. All he does is work, work, work. He has zero ego.”

Grgurich is no Tarkanian clone. He doesn’t carry the cellular phone around, doesn’t camp out at his favorite Italian restaurant and shoot the bull with boosters, doesn’t hand out his home number, doesn’t own a sideline hand towel. His idea of a gourmet dinner is chicken wings.

But they made a great pair, Tarkanian and Grgurich. Together they helped UNLV win a national championship, perfected the art of pressure defense and fast-break basketball and put the Runnin’ Rebels on everyone’s must-see map, including those of NCAA investigators.

When Tarkanian suffered heart problems several years ago, Grgurich was the first to check on his condition. And when Tarkanian resigned in 1992, the first and only person he recommended for the job was Grgurich. Two years and one coach later, UNLV took Tarkanian’s advice.

“Tim is his own man,” Tarkanian said. “He’ll be successful here because they all know all the good he’s done. They know what kind of guy he is. They can relate to him.”

Somebody can. All of the suites at the Thomas & Mack are sold and, according to Craig Breuer, the school’s coordinator of the scholarship donor program, the number of quality seats is dwindling fast.

“There are a lot of people who are coming in big,” Breuer said of the seating donations, which range from $600 to $10,000. “The people who are coming in now are former donors who are happy with the coaching change. They couldn’t be happier that (Grgurich is) back.”

Happy enough that Breuer estimates--and this is on the safe side, he said--Grgurich’s hiring could result in an additional $500,000 worth of donations, maybe more.

“They’re buying for the future,” Breuer said.

Good thing, too, since UNLV will play only nine regular-season home games in 1994-95, all against Big West Conference teams. Next year, when NCAA sanctions expire, the Rebels will face, among others, nonconference opponents Florida, UCLA, Seton Hall and Michigan at home.

Not that any of this matters to Grgurich. Suite rentals . . . ticket sales . . . T-shirts that read “Happy Days Are Here Again”--it’s nice, but Grgurich has a team to coach.

“There’s a lot of enthusiasm here, but I think everybody else is enjoying it,” he said. “I don’t think I’m going to be able to enjoy it until the season ends, really. I don’t think there’s time to. There’s just too much to do.”

OK, so circle April 4, 1995, the day after the college season ends with the Final Four championship game. Maybe then Grgurich can allow himself a moment to celebrate and to do the unthinkable. He can open that bottle of slivovitz and toast the old days. And the new ones, too.