A Prodigal Shark Returns for a Night in Las Vegas

Except for the years he was hounded by the NCAA--all of them--and those photographs of his players in a hot tub with a convicted sports fixer, and his knock-down battles with Robert Maxson, the former school president, and the fact he was chased out of town, Jerry Tarkanian spent 19 blissful seasons as basketball coach at Nevada Las Vegas.

“I love UNLV,” Tarkanian said last week. “I really do. I loved my time there. I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Obviously, I was really disappointed in about three or four of the people who sabotaged us from behind the scenes, but that’s a very small minority.

“I love Vegas and I love UNLV.”

Tarkanian would have retired on the Strip--would have been retired by now, he says--but for fate.

When he returned from exile last year to coach at Fresno State, his alma mater, Tarkanian, 66, expected tonight was coming.

He calls it his “penance.”

Tark knew UNLV was joining the Western Athletic Conference this season, but prayed the Rebels would be placed in the Mountain Division of the confounding, quadrant-based, 16-team WAC format. Maybe, by quirk of schedule, he would not have to return to face his former school.

“I just didn’t want to play there,” Tarkanian said.

No such luck.

Tonight, Tarkanian returns to coach against UNLV at Thomas and Mack Center for the first time since resigning under pressure after the 1991-92 season.

Feelings aside, the Pacific Division game is important enough. The Bulldogs (16-9 overall, 8-3 in the WAC) are clawing for an NCAA berth but coming off an odorous 85-64 loss at Air Force on Saturday. UNLV (15-7, 7-4) has turned the corner under Coach Bill Bayno.

Tarkanian has chomped plenty of towels in his day, but tonight he may need court-side maid service.

“It’s going to be very emotional for me,” he said.

Tarkanian won 509 games at UNLV and led the Runnin’ Rebels to 12 NCAA tournaments, four Final Four appearances and a national title in 1990.

He entered this season with an .829 winning percentage, best ever among Division I coaches.

Tarkanian has already stared down his demons, in part. In December, Fresno State played Texas Tech in the Las Vegas Shootout at Thomas and Mack.

And, Jan. 20, Tarkanian’s Bulldogs defeated the Rebels in Fresno.

He says those brushes with his past won’t compare to walking into Thomas and Mack and sitting on the visitors’ bench to coach against the Rebels.

“I can’t get out of it,” he said.

Tarkanian coached his last game at UNLV on March 3, 1992, a 65-53 victory over Utah State.

His desert reign was over. In a deal worked out with Maxson in June 1991, Tarkanian agreed to resign after the 1991-92 season. Las Vegas was a mess, a city torn. The NCAA had closed in with alleged violations dating back to 1977 and was dangling 40 more possible violations, mostly related to Lloyd Daniels, the New York City phenom recruited by Tarkanian who never played at UNLV.

There were reports of UNLV players driving late-model sports cars and accusations of possible point shaving, allegations Tarkanian vehemently denied and fought.

Tarkanian even once rescinded his resignation during his public war against Maxson and the coterie he thought plotted against him.

The NCAA was set to prohibit the Rebels from defending their 1990 title, won in a 30-point blowout victory over Duke, but a deal was worked out so the Rebels were banned from the 1991-92 NCAA tournament instead.

That year, Tarkanian’s last, UNLV went 26-2.

After the Utah State game, he approached the microphone and tried to address the sellout crowd.

“I just want to thank everybody for 19 wonderful years,” Tarkanian began. . . .

He choked up and couldn’t continue.

Five years later, Tarkanian returns to finish the speech.

“It’s going to be the little things, just walking in the locker room, walking down the tunnel,” he said. “I still remember vividly the last game, Utah State, walking down that tunnel. It’ll be very emotional, no question about it.”

He eased into retirement, sandwiching beauty contest judgings and John Grisham novels around a brief, ill-advised fling with the NBA San Antonio Spurs.

But Las Vegas never forgot.

“Jerry built this program,” says best friend Fred Glusman, owner of Pieros’ restaurant in Vegas.

In October 1994, the NCAA dropped its case against Tarkanian, paving the way for his return to Fresno.

Tarkanian still has the No. 1 parking stall at Thomas and Mack and four lifetime season tickets to UNLV games.

Lois, his wife, maintains the Tarkanian family home in Las Vegas and serves as a trustee for the Clark County School District.

Tarkanian wondered last week whether it might be best to seclude himself in a hotel room before the game. Someone suggested he hole up in Howard Hughes’ old hotel suite.

“I think they’d find me anyway,” he said.

Glusman threw a party for Tarkanian and Fresno boosters at his restaurant Sunday night and fully expected the coach to attend.

“He can’t hide,” Glusman said. “Where’s he going to hide?”

While coaching, Tarkanian ate at Pieros every night he was in town.

Maxson and others who fought to oust Tarkanian will not be there to greet him.

“They all got run out of town, every single one of them,” Tarkanian said. “They’re all gone.”

Maxson is now president at Long Beach State.

Glusman and Tarkanian teamed to strike a movie deal of his years in Vegas, coming soon to a cable channel near you. And Glusman offered a $30,000 reward for the identity of the desert rat who handed over damning photos of three UNLV players in a hot tub with Richard “The Fixer” Perry to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Tarkanian says he doesn’t get back to Las Vegas much.

“There are too many exciting things to do in Fresno,” he joked.

He hardly recognizes the old haunt, what with the bungee-jumping and New York City skyscrapers.

“The whole makeup of Vegas has changed,” he said. “When I went there it was sin city. Everyone was using that against us. Now everyone is moving there.”

So who will Las Vegas fans be rooting for?

“He’s going to get a standing ovation,” Glusman said.

“People still love Jerry. They’re still behind him. On the other hand, Jerry’s gone. And they want UNLV to win. There will be people in there, like me, that hope the game ends up in a tie.”