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AJ McKenzie
  • 17 hours ago
NCAA tried to push these guys down, and they still had success
IG: aj_mckenzie416
Twitter: AJMckenzie94847
Transcript
00:00Okay.
00:08The following is a special presentation of the HBO Sports documentary series, Legends and Legacies.
00:35The ULB basketball represented what Vegas was about. Really fast, entertaining. It was quite a show.
00:43Vegas was a big-time town. It was absolutely mind-boggling.
00:49We were traveling with the rock stars. No one could stop us.
00:56They had personality. They played with passion. They pissed people off. They made other people proud. They were Vegas.
01:08And they're on the run.
01:20For the better part of two decades, the early 1970s to the early 1990s, the run-in rebels of UNLV
01:28embodied the spirit of the city they represented.
01:32Brash. Bold. Swaggering.
01:36And dedicated to the notion that winning and winning big was all that mattered.
01:42Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!
01:46The rebels were a dynasty in the desert.
01:49One of the longest-running and most successful shows on the street.
01:55The one act Vegas could call its own.
01:59With a charming yet controversial coach and a flamboyant style of play that was a lot wild and a little
02:07wicked.
02:08The rebels owned Sin City and, against all odds, hit the college basketball jackpot.
02:16The run of a lifetime for a small school from the West.
02:20You have to understand that in the early 1970s, when they went to national and especially even regional meetings, no
02:26one knew what UNLV's acronym meant.
02:43Donald Bepler, an influential UNLV vice president, was one of those who felt the creation of a successful basketball program
02:51would raise the university's profile, and with it, its academic standing.
02:57His approach was fully embraced by an eager group of athletic boosters, who already had their eye on an up
03:03-and-coming coach making waves on the West Coast, Jerry Tarkanian.
03:08I had met Jerry when he was at Pasadena City College.
03:11He was a great coach, a great recruiter.
03:13I called him one day and just asked him if he'd have an interest in the job, and he kind
03:17of laughed and said, no, I don't think so.
03:20You know, and then we started the process.
03:22And so I talked to Jerry, and then I talked to his wife, and then I talked to the kids,
03:26two or three hours a day, seven days a week.
03:29They drove us crazy, you know, the calling and calling and calling.
03:34I didn't want to come, and they were just insistent, oh, come on out, come on out and see what
03:39it's like.
03:40I'm not sure he decided to come until the very day came.
03:45They were a relatively unknown program, but they had the resources and they had the potential.
03:51In fact, I told my wife, I said, Lois, this is going to be like a college town.
03:56She said, are you kidding? You're crazy. How could Vegas be a college town?
04:07So he took me down the strip, and doggone it, wouldn't you know, there was cars going by.
04:13Hey, Tart!
04:15When we first came, we didn't have a home or anything, so he lived in a room in a casino.
04:21This here, place you there.
04:23Thirteen left.
04:26There it goes.
04:27So that wasn't very good.
04:29It wasn't long before the Tarkanians moved out of the casino and into a brand new home, bought at the
04:36builder's cost.
04:38There were other benefits as well, like the more than 200 game tickets, with which Tarkanian was he pleased.
04:46All he had to do was win.
04:48And that's something we can correct.
04:49When I took this job, I felt that we could be very competitive in our league,
04:53but I never anticipated us getting to the level that we got to.
04:58And with tough athletic players like Ricky Sobers, Jackie Robinson, and Eddie Owens, he did.
05:05Twenty games in his first season, and 24 the next.
05:10Tark's Rebels were really on the run.
05:13The Rebels were showtime before the Lakers were showtime, and they scored a lot of points, and it was very
05:18fast-paced, but really the team was built around defense.
05:21Tark's motto was, we're going to play 40 minutes of nonstop pressure basketball.
05:29We wanted to score, steal it, and score again.
05:34And they're on the run.
05:35We were getting so many turnovers, so many steals, that we just started scoring quick, and then all of a
05:41sudden, you know, you look up, and you got 69 points at halftime.
05:44Beautiful move by Dodger Beck.
05:45We scored 110 points a game with no three-point line.
05:48100 points again for the Running Rebels.
05:51They had great teams.
05:53I remember as a kid, I used to go into my mom's bedroom, and I'd take my blanket with me,
05:57and I'd put the blanket over the television and over myself and watch the entire game.
06:02We were watching artists out there.
06:05In 1976 and 1977, UNLV lost a total of just three regular season games, affectionately known as the Hardway Eight,
06:15because they relied on only eight players.
06:18The 77 Rebels were a scoring machine.
06:21They set NCAA records for most points in a season, and consecutive games scoring more than 100 points, and made
06:30their first ever trip to the Final Four.
06:34In the national semifinals against North Carolina, the Rebels took a 10-point lead in the second half, but they
06:40wound up losing by one, 84-83.
06:46The unexpected Rebel run to the Final Four was more than just exciting.
06:52It provided a rallying point for a struggling community.
06:56The year Tarkanian arrives, 73.
06:59The MGM Grand opens on the strip.
07:01It's the last major hotel until Steve Wynn opens the Mirage in 89.
07:06Las Vegas was slowing down a bit in terms of its reputation, in terms of business, in terms of entertainment.
07:15Internationally and nationally, you have stagflation.
07:18You have the Arab oil embargo.
07:21Throw in Atlantic City cutting into Las Vegas' business, and it's a difficult time.
07:27Atlantic City has put in 893 slot machines, 60 blackjack tables, 10 dice tables, and it hopes to become rich
07:36enough to compete with Las Vegas.
07:37If they aren't coming here, then the whole state is going to suffer.
07:42The Rebels, in a funny sort of way, divert us from all that.
07:49What other sports did Las Vegas have?
07:52They didn't have professional football.
07:54They didn't have professional baseball.
07:57They didn't have professional basketball.
08:00And there were many people who said, we never go to the casinos.
08:05Now they have professional football and hockey.
08:10I think the A's are going to move there also.
08:14But college basketball very suddenly became the event in town if you were a sports fan.
08:20In the late 70s, I was in like 7th or 8th grade, and the Rebels were in the top 10.
08:26I remember thinking, wow, this is unbelievable.
08:28They're in the top 10 in the nation.
08:29We didn't have anything like that.
08:31We didn't have an athlete to rally around.
08:33You know, the Rebels were ours.
08:35Wherever our kids go, that's the talk of the town.
08:38It was more difficult to get a ticket to a UNLV basketball game than it was to the Frank Sinatra
08:44show.
08:45Turns out Frank Sinatra was more than just a regular on the strip.
08:49He was a big supporter of Rebel basketball, willing to use his Italian heritage to help his Armenian friend.
08:56The number one fan of the Rebels is a singer whose name at the moment escapes me.
09:01He actually recruits for Tarkanian.
09:04Not long ago, he called a prospect in Long Island to make a pitch about UNLV.
09:08I was a rising junior from Farmandale High School.
09:11Dinner time on a Saturday night.
09:12The phone rang.
09:14The person on the other end said, may I please speak to Jim?
09:17This is Frank Sinatra.
09:19And my mother said, this is Ella Fitzgerald.
09:22Goodbye.
09:24And two minutes later, he explained to me that Jerry Tarkanian was very interested in my coming to play at
09:29the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
09:32Eventually, I decided to choose the University of South Carolina.
09:36Frank Sinatra was a hard thing to refuse.
09:39In the end, Old Blue Eyes proved to be a better singer than a recruiter.
09:43But his willingness to be Tarkanian's messenger spoke loudly about how high this unlikely star had risen.
09:51Even in a town full of world-renowned entertainers, one stood out.
09:57An affable coach with a trademarked towel known as Tark the Shark.
10:03I'll take the two on the right.
10:09Parker, Parker, that's it.
10:10Well, I think they're a great team, and I'm very delighted for them, except Tarkanian is eating up all their
10:14linen.
10:15The man sits on the bench and eats towels.
10:16Vegas has a lot of famous people, and most of them don't live there, and they come through.
10:21But you see stars all the time.
10:23Growing up there, I saw Liberace buying meat in the Mayfair market,
10:26and Sammy Davis Jr. buying pants in the boys' section at Saks Fifth Avenue.
10:31And these are things you see regularly, and they're weird things.
10:33But Tark is a great character, and he always looks so sad.
10:36Like, he's chewing on his towel, and he looks like a bulldog or something.
10:40He's really, he looks like a stuffed animal.
10:45He didn't have to be a big-shot, high-roller to relate to Jerry Tarkanian.
10:49He was such an everyman. He was a regular guy.
10:53He enjoyed going to a hole-in-the-wall joint to eat.
10:55He didn't drive around in a Rolls Royce except when he was recruiting.
10:59If you were a bellman, if you were a dealer, a waitress, you could relate to Tark.
11:04And what made it so endearing was that Tark didn't understand or realize the fame that he had.
11:14I mean, he liked going somewhere and getting dinner for free. You know, who doesn't like that?
11:17But at the same time, we'd be on the road with the basketball team,
11:20and there'd be times where some half-drunk guy would come up to him in a bar
11:23and want to talk about the amoeba defense, and Tark would sit there for 20 minutes on a napkin
11:28explaining the amoeba defense to some guy that he had just met.
11:33I was a teenager, and we got into a van and drove to L.A. for the PCAA tournament.
11:39And we see Tark and Lois, so we start screaming out,
11:43Hey, Tari! Or whatever, we're screaming out the window.
11:45And he goes, Hey, guys! And he waves us over, and the van pulls over, and he goes,
11:49We take Lois back to the Hilton?
11:52That's the kind of love affair that there was between Tarkanian and the city of Las Vegas.
11:57Even in L.A., he had complete confidence that he could put his wife in a van with strangers,
12:03and she would make it to the hotel safely.
12:09Only four years after his arrival in Vegas, Jerry Tarkanian had moved UNLV into the big time.
12:16But it came with a price.
12:19Just five months after the 1977 season ended, with a close loss to North Carolina in the Final Four,
12:27the NCAA officially hit UNLV with numerous major rules infractions.
12:32There were charges of grade fixing, recruiting violations, and providing players with extra benefits,
12:40including free clothing, cash gifts, and other various merchandise,
12:44some of which occurred before Tarkanian arrived in 1970.
12:49A penalty.
12:5273.
12:53Still, the penalty was severe.
12:56A two-year ban on appearing on national TV, and for participating in postseason play.
13:02Then, the bombshell.
13:05Citing infractions dating back to his days at Long Beach State,
13:08the NCAA took the extremely unusual step of recommending that UNLV suspend its coach, Jerry Tarkanian, for two seasons.
13:19Was he a perfect coach?
13:21Was he a saint?
13:21Did he do things that a lot of other coaches did?
13:24I imagine he did.
13:26I like to say there are no virgins in big time college athletics.
13:28If you're going to win big, you're going to play some of those games.
13:31You're going to commit some rules violations.
13:33Sometimes unknowingly, many times knowingly.
13:35Were they asked for benefits?
13:37Technically, yes.
13:39Were other schools doing it?
13:41Of course.
13:42Can you prove it?
13:43That's another story.
13:44And that's always been the case.
13:46This goes back to before he came to Vegas.
13:49Even back when he was at Long Beach, he was being investigated.
13:53They came after us at Long Beach State.
13:56In the history of college sports, no school has ever been on probation that had less resources than we had.
14:03We didn't have any money.
14:05Our pregame meal was Kentucky Fried Chicken.
14:07We led the nation in Kentucky Fried Chicken.
14:10We were right down the road from UCLA, and UCLA had Sam Gilbert at that time.
14:17Sam Gilbert was a one-man boosters club, and the NCAA did nothing to them.
14:23And we were being investigated.
14:25It was brutal.
14:27Not everybody cheats.
14:29And to say that we picked on smaller schools because, allegedly, they were easier targets,
14:34it doesn't work that way.
14:36And the word selective enforcement was tossed around quite a bit.
14:41Tarkanian did more than just toss that theory around.
14:45At Long Beach State, he went public about it, writing a series of articles openly criticizing the NCAA
14:51for what he felt was a tendency to pick on smaller, less influential schools.
14:56The first burr in the saddle of the NCAA.
14:59And then as he became successful, he didn't back off on his criticism of the organization.
15:05That made him even more of a target.
15:09This was the Turks and the Armenians, and the NCAA was the Ottoman Empire.
15:14I mean, was Tark running a clean program?
15:16No.
15:17I don't think you can say that.
15:19But, when you got on the radar screen of the NCAA in those days,
15:23you were putting yourself in the crosshairs of people that did not like to be embarrassed.
15:27And he was the blip that they wanted to get rid of.
15:30And Tark was like, you know what, fuck you.
15:32For crying out loud.
15:34I couldn't let them make those allegations.
15:37We would have wanted any court in the world.
15:39They had no evidence, believe me.
15:41They had no evidence.
15:42I'd like to say it's just common sense that when you have an accumulation of data,
15:48comments back from schools that compete against the school in question,
15:52what I like to refer to as noise out there.
15:56Everything.
15:58Comments from schools that peaked.
16:02You can't be that idiotic.
16:05Of course, schools that would compete against them would say that because they lost to them.
16:11Of course, somebody couldn't try to say somebody else is playing unfairly,
16:16doing something illegal outside the lines, when they lose to them.
16:22Does that...
16:23That has always happened since sports became a thing.
16:29Ultimately, when the NCAA did present its evidence against UNLV, Tarkanian switched tactics.
16:36Commercial break.
16:38Commercial break.
16:39Smackdown is before WrestleMania.
16:42Guess where that is?
16:44Las Vegas.
16:46He objected to how the evidence was obtained,
16:49arguing that the methods employed by an eager NCAA enforcement staff,
16:54led by its young investigator David Burst,
16:57were unjust, vindictive, and lack due process.
17:00I mean, there's no personal animus that I'm aware of against the guy.
17:05David Burst called Jerry a rug merchant.
17:07Now, what is a rug merchant in relationship to Armenians?
17:10That's an ethnic slur.
17:12What?
17:13He believed that he had to get this guy by whatever means possible.
17:18The NCAA had done things that were potentially illegal, but were certainly unethical.
17:25They knew how to take and twist words.
17:28They didn't take recorded interviews.
17:29They encouraged student athletes to sign statements with the promise of immediate eligibility someplace else.
17:35The NCAA was pretty thick around here, and they interviewed us, talked to us about different things.
17:41Did you get anything coming here?
17:43Were you promised anything?
17:44And I was like, shit, I barely got a chance to get here.
17:47They used every trick you could use to try to get to an end goal.
17:51And there was no due process at all. None whatsoever.
17:55So Tarkanian fought back, getting a Nevada judge to grant a permanent injunction,
18:01preventing UNLV from imposing the NCAA suspension.
18:06But I'm real grateful for our judicial system.
18:09He could continue to coach, but his team would stay on probation.
18:13And the lack of national exposure hurt the program.
18:17In between there, there was a 16 and 12 season.
18:20Some very ordinary seasons of basketball.
18:22We're allowing them to throw the ball.
18:24Where do you want? Deny the next pass!
18:26And then along comes the 82-83 season, and they were back, led by Sidney Green that year.
18:40And my son played during that time.
18:42We weren't supposed to be very good.
18:44In fact, I don't think we were picked in the top 25 in any poll.
18:49And we wound up number one in the country for two weeks.
18:53And back in the NCAA tournament for the first time in six seasons.
18:58The resurgence came just as the Rebels were about to move into their new, blitzy, state-of-the-art home.
19:05The Thomas & Mack Center.
19:06A 20,000-seat on-campus arena, partially financed through funds from slot machine revenues.
19:14When we got the Thomas & Mack Arena, I mean, I'm still, to this day, there's nothing more exciting than
19:19those Rebel games were.
19:29Oh, man. When they roll out the red carpet.
19:38Yeah, the fireworks going off.
19:39That was quite in the drill with Lush.
19:49The best part was the Jaws theme music.
19:55Oh, the shark roaming around the arena and the music.
20:00Dun-dun. Dun-dun.
20:02And you had everybody doing the shark.
20:10They kept trying to get more seats in the arena because it sold out so often.
20:14So, they added a row.
20:16And that row, they charged extremely high prices for the tickets.
20:21Along with the ideal perspective of run-and-rap round ball has come a nickname.
20:25A local newspaper writer has dubbed these seats Gucci Row.
20:28They had all the fancy clothes and the jewelry and the big rings and the over-made-up mistresses and
20:34stuff.
20:34All the well-heeled boosters, most of them from the casinos.
20:37It was quite a show.
20:38It was a home court advantage like no other.
20:42And the Rebels took full advantage.
20:44Becoming nearly unbeatable at the Thomas & Mack.
20:48Or anywhere else for that matter.
20:51In 1987, led by Freddie Banks, Jarvis Bassnight, and Armand Gilliam, UNLV won a school record 37 games.
21:01And returned to the Final Four as the number one team in the country where they faced Indiana.
21:08We were expected to win the whole thing.
21:10We were the favorites.
21:11We were playing great.
21:12Once we got to the Final Four, I don't think we played our best basketball.
21:15We had to battle all night just to get the game close and we couldn't overtake them at the end.
21:21The city wants a championship so bad and I felt like I disappointed everybody.
21:32By the late 80s, UNLV had established itself as one of the elite basketball programs in the country.
21:39But it wasn't just winning games that was making headlines.
21:43He considers UNLV a halfway house for troubled youth and a lot of people disagree with him.
21:47You know, including myself.
21:49My first year on the beat, I started looking into the academic history and I wrote a big...
21:53Their lousy graduation record.
21:56I wrote that they had only four graduates in the first ten years of the program.
22:00What?
22:00That's when I realized this place was different.
22:04Tarkanian told me once, college degrees were overrated.
22:07I think you have to touch all segments of society, not just the elite.
22:11It's more important for the university to educate than it is to graduate.
22:17Jerry Tarkanian's philosophy of recruiting players with questionable social and academic skills to succeed at college
22:24was as much a part of his legacy as his success on the court.
22:27His approach was high risk, high reward.
22:31Criticized by some as exploitation, praised by others as saving souls.
22:38Tark was very sympathetic toward young basketball players who had had some setback in the classroom with authorities.
22:49If he could help that young man in any way, by allowing him to play basketball, he would do that.
22:55What the hell are you doing?
22:56They tell me you're having to go to class now.
22:59If a kid has had a problem someplace else, it doesn't necessarily mean he's a bad kid.
23:04They come from impoverished environments.
23:07Oftentimes they're going to come from single parent homes.
23:12Should we just say, well, you know what, let's just pretend that none of those people even exist.
23:16None of them deserve an opportunity.
23:17I don't understand that thought process.
23:23And the ulterior motive of all is he thinks these guys can play.
23:27He's not just being Father Flanagan and giving a kid a second chance, okay?
23:32This whole thing's winning.
23:33He wasn't just doing stuff out of the goodness of his heart.
23:36In college basketball recruiting, it's risk-reward.
23:39And as time went on, I think that risk-reward ratio for Tark got out of whack.
23:45There's no question that Jerry took chances on kids that most coaches wouldn't touch with a 100-foot pole.
23:50They just wouldn't do it.
23:52Players like Richie Adams, who had a reputation for stealing and using drugs on the streets of New York City.
23:58Who went on to become a star at UNLV in the early 80s.
24:02There's a person who Tark recruited right out of reform school and was arrested even before he enrolled at Vegas.
24:12Then there was Lloyd Daniels, a seductive talent who Tark recruited in 1987, despite having reading skills that were reported
24:21to be at a third grade level.
24:23He may be the best young player I had ever seen.
24:28The only question is, will he get his academics up?
24:31I was having a debate with Tarkanian about five boosters about ready to tear my limbs off because I was
24:37saying that Daniels didn't belong in school.
24:40The boosters in most schools went there.
24:44I didn't meet a booster who went to UNLV.
24:47They couldn't find the library if you gave them a map.
24:50So the fans and the big money boosters there didn't care about the school's academic reputation.
24:57It's the sort of thing that you look at it and it doesn't pass the smell test, as they say.
25:01It just didn't feel right.
25:06You have to be a rebel.
25:08Don't say that we don't need to.
25:10I know.
25:10He is, Jesus Christ.
25:12Then just two weeks before he was to attend UNLV.
25:17Don't tell me a basketball player.
25:20Lloyd Daniels.
25:22The story just escalated huge.
25:24Right there on the 11 o'clock news, Daniels embarrassed both himself and the university.
25:30Lloyd Daniels was picked up in a routine cocaine bust.
25:33Lloyd, do you realize what you may have done to your career?
25:37After Daniels got busted, I wrote a column saying that Tarkanian had bastardized college athletics
25:42and made a mockery of higher education.
25:44They had completely punted academic integrity.
25:49I get back the next morning and my apartment had been completely trashed.
25:55I mean, everything was overturned completely.
25:56It looked like a hurricane went through there.
25:59And then the next day, I go to Tarkanian's office and he said,
26:02I don't blame you for being upset, but I'm not surprised.
26:05People want to kill you, John.
26:10We probably wouldn't have got involved if I knew the way it turned out.
26:13We had no idea that he was involved in drugs.
26:17And as soon as we found out, we dropped him.
26:21Daniels never played a minute at UNLV.
26:24And just seven months later, the NCAA began yet another investigation of the basketball program.
26:30They were divided by the university itself.
26:35But in spite of the intensifying scrutiny both inside the school and out,
26:40basketball at UNLV kept getting bigger.
26:45And by 1990, it was about to get better.
26:48Thanks to Larry Johnson, a junior college transfer with unlimited potential.
26:55Larry Johnson was one of the singular and greatest college basketball players that we've ever had.
27:01Just incredible explosion.
27:09He seemed like a man among boys.
27:14He was so big and so strong and yet he had such great touch.
27:21It was the first time we ever got anybody in that stature.
27:25But we knew we were going to really be good.
27:30Larry Johnson is the ultimate team player.
27:34Every time a guy makes a great play, Larry would go hug it.
27:38After a while, the whole team is hugging each other.
27:41That's what really allowed our team to go to another level because we had other guys.
27:45Stacy Ogden was an All-American.
27:46I was a scorer in high school.
27:48But when I came to UNLV, in order for me to stay on the court,
27:51because we already had scorers there, was to play defense.
27:56The two guard is Anderson Hunt, who was dead up at least from the right wing.
28:00If you left him open for a square up jumper, he was going to make it.
28:04We got Greg Anthony at point guard, consummate leader.
28:08The year prior, we had gotten the junior college player of the year in David Butler,
28:12who was an unbelievable talent.
28:15NBA crap disturbance with the Knicks.
28:20Starting fights and scuffles and stuff like that.
28:26One of the underrated guys was Moses Scurry.
28:32Moses would come off the bench, and I think he was in his 40s when he played on the team.
28:36He looked like Grady from Sanford and Son.
28:41But he had so much passion, and he'd just go crazy.
28:44He was roaring every time he got his hands on the ball.
28:52UNLV began the 1990 season at the top of the polls.
29:00But the rebels still spent much of the early part of the season looking down the barrel of the NCAA's
29:06regulatory gun.
29:09To UNLV and especially TARC, most of the NCAA's accusations seem trivial.
29:16Unpaid charges for hotel minibars and even surfboard rentals.
29:22We led a nation in suspensions that year.
29:25We had guys that were suspended for when they checked out of the hotel, they didn't pay for a long
29:29distance call.
29:30Things that you never heard of.
29:32Any institution that comes under the examination of the enforcement department feels heat.
29:40But if there were not major infractions, it's quite possible minor infractions would go unnoticed.
29:46I don't recall ever a case being developed for a wrong lunch.
29:51A wrongful lunch.
29:56However trivial the accusations, they did result in the suspension at one time or another of ten different players.
30:04We actually didn't have a starting five for the first four weeks of the season.
30:10We wouldn't know who was missing the game until right before the game.
30:14Literally.
30:16Like the time I got to...
30:18Change up game plans, change up their playbook.
30:21The NCAA was doing that to sabotage them.
30:25I believe it.
30:26And I'm not a fan of theirs.
30:27Obviously.
30:28I'm on the other side of the country.
30:32I was actually on the plane ready to go to LSU.
30:35And they actually came on the plane before it took off and say I can't participate.
30:41All but one or two players avoided being suspended.
30:45Whose turn is it tonight to have to sit out?
30:48They clearly did not want UNLV and Tarkanian and these guys representing NCAA college basketball.
30:58They tried to destroy that team every way they could.
31:01I said we can do one of two things.
31:03We can get pissed off and get tougher and hell mentally and kick the crap out of everybody.
31:10Or else we could fold.
31:12And we just kept getting tougher and tougher.
31:16The Rebels fought through the NCAA suspensions to win 19 of their first 23 games.
31:22It was the 24th against Fresno State that almost ended their season of dreams.
31:28I'm going in for a layup.
31:31And the guy takes my legs out.
31:33And I couldn't get my hands down in time to break the fall.
31:37So in essence I broke it with my face.
31:42This is just a bad accident.
31:49His head hit the floor with a seconding thud.
31:52He looked like he'd been shot.
31:56And I ended up breaking my chin and my jaw in two places.
32:00Shattering teeth.
32:02The whole Thomas and Mac dead silent.
32:05Can't hear a word.
32:07The speculation is the season was lost.
32:11So next day they're in practice.
32:13Who shows up?
32:15His jaw is wired shut.
32:16He's got a hockey helmet on.
32:18As captain of the team it was important that the guys saw that I was committed to trying to see
32:24this thing through.
32:25I told the rest of the players that we got a fighter here leading this team.
32:29We can't let him down. Let's go.
32:30With a look that would have made the Phantom of the Opera proud.
32:34Anthony did not miss a single game.
32:36And orchestrated a rebel run that saw UNLV win 15 of its last 16 games.
32:43But more than that.
32:45By overcoming a season of mental and physical adversity.
32:49The rebels had developed an us against them mentality.
32:52That was hard to overlook.
32:54And easy to criticize.
32:56You talk to people who were around this team in the big west in particular.
33:00It sounds like rock stars showing up.
33:07Just beating people up and down.
33:19We saw a team of urban African-American males playing with a particular swagger.
33:28In your face it was aggressive.
33:31It was hard-edged.
33:33It was extremely confrontational.
33:38Outlaws.
33:40Very much in the ethos of street ball.
33:47There were a lot of people watching UNLV who were very proud of the fact that this swagger was being
33:55seen on national television.
33:56And this team was so victorious playing this particular style of play.
34:01And the impact was profound in the inner cities.
34:04In the streets.
34:07The caps and the t-shirt.
34:09All the merchandising.
34:10Anything to do with UNLV was very cool.
34:14Because to wear UNLV, you were basically saying, I too am a rebel.
34:19And I identify with their rebellious spirit.
34:22There were a lot of other people watching UNLV who cringed.
34:28UNLV was called thugs.
34:39They thought we were all thugs and idiots and dumb kids.
34:44Or athletes, not even student athletes.
34:46That didn't even deserve to be in school.
34:49I hear some people saying, we heard you guys were thugs.
34:52I just giggle.
34:53I'm like laughing like, wow, that's thugs.
34:56The thug issue was racism.
34:58And there's just no other way to put that.
35:02The president of the young Republicans was the point guard.
35:07They weren't going to jail.
35:08They weren't in the news left and right.
35:11All they were were young black guys that just happened to have a whole lot of personality.
35:17Too legit to quit.
35:18Till I got that.
35:19Too legit to quit.
35:21That's hammer, baby.
35:22That's hammer, man.
35:24And undeniably, a whole lot of talent.
35:28UNLV finished the 1990 regular season with a record of 29 and 5.
35:33To earn the top seed in the West region of the NCAA tournament.
35:39After surviving a two point win over Ball State in the Sweet 16.
35:42The Red Bulls scored 131 points against Loyola Marymount to reach their third Final Four.
35:52Then, in the national semifinals, UNLV came from behind to beat Georgia Tech to reach its first NCAA championship game.
36:13And the contrast between the opponents could not have been more pronounced.
36:18You got Duke, the Blue Bloods from the ACC.
36:22They were just starting to become the darlings of college basketball if you could see these scruffy guys from Vegas.
36:27It was a clash of styles.
36:30It was a clash of private, elite, southern.
36:34Red versus blue.
36:36Versus commuter, Las Vegas.
36:41I mean, every possible way you could divide it up was there.
36:47Some people saw black versus white.
36:51Duke looked more like what college basketball was.
36:55UNLV, in the eyes of people, looked like what college basketball was becoming.
36:59Almost a professional basketball team.
37:02With this renegade that is in charge.
37:05And they're playing against Duke.
37:06They are what college basketball should be.
37:08It's a high-ranking academic institution.
37:10You've got guys like Christian Laettner, guys like Bobby Hurley, guys that, for lack of a better term, look the
37:15part.
37:15Well, what way is the media going to create what that story is?
37:19And it wound up being the easy way.
37:21Duke was seen as the good team, and UNLV was the evil.
37:24Some people see this game as a battle of the good boys against the bad.
37:29Why this label bad?
37:30Why this label bad boy?
37:32I would have picked up to the Reds.
37:34You label Duke the bad boys?
37:35I label us.
37:37When it got to that point, it really did bother us.
37:40We felt like they were a good team, but we didn't feel like they were better people.
37:45You know, we're all basketball players.
37:47We're out there competing, representing our school, our communities, our families.
37:51And we'll find out tonight who the better team is.
37:53And we begin.
37:56With relentless pressure on defense and lightning strikes on offense, the Rebels rushed out to an early double-digit lead,
38:03led by 12 at the half.
38:05Soon after came the deluge.
38:08A three-minute, 18-point run to put the game out of reach.
38:13We hit a spurt, and we just kept filling the basket up.
38:18I mean, it just seemed like we couldn't miss.
38:19Back to the top, and there is Johnson.
38:21Here's Han Solo.
38:22Coming in, it'll be Johnson with his second throw.
38:25And then, hot off the fake.
38:27Hot off the drill, and comes out there.
38:30It seemed like the basket was so big for all of us, and it just didn't stop.
38:39So I don't seem like I'm biased against Duke.
38:42I just like the hat.
38:43I don't, I'm not a, I'm not a, I'm not biased against Duke.
38:46It started to snowball.
38:4816, 18, 20, 21, 23.
38:52It's growing.
38:53And there's nothing that Mike Krzyzewski or anybody a dude can do about it.
38:57It's been a tough night for that man there.
38:59They wore us down.
39:00Their athleticism, their pressure, they were relentless.
39:05And I thought they played their best game in the championship game, which says something about the character of their
39:11team.
39:18What about five minutes to go, and we're up 28.
39:21I felt pretty safe.
39:25Tarkanian is sitting on the bench, and he goes.
39:37I don't have to do anything.
39:39Five minutes to three.
39:41Folks, this one's all Vegas.
39:48They have won their first ever national championship, and in three prints, the shark comes away a winner in a
39:54record-setting night.
39:56103-73, UNLV.
39:59They put 103 on the board.
40:03They beat them by 30.
40:07Just hang your head, walk off the court, go straight to the bus, get on the plane and go home,
40:12because you've just been dismissed.
40:16They were so deserving of winning the national championship that year.
40:21My hat's off to them, because we could have played them 20 times.
40:25We wouldn't have beaten them in any of the games.
40:28What did they call us the other day?
40:30Thugs.
40:30You can call us thugs.
40:32You can call us hollies.
40:33But at the end, put that onto us.
40:35You know, we appreciate it just for us to put national champs on there.
40:38Mm-hmm.
40:39It was a really surreal feeling, because never in your wildest dreams would you ever imagine winning a championship like
40:48that,
40:49especially in the NCAAs when, for so many years, those championship games were so close.
40:55Jerry, I want to ask you one thing.
40:56With all your problems that you've had at UNLV, you have stayed with it.
41:00Did you ever think about quitting and walking away as a coach?
41:04No, I love UNLV.
41:05I love what I'm doing.
41:06Not that this win is for the kids, but it's mostly for the great people in the state of Nevada.
41:12The whole state supports us, and I'm just so happy for them.
41:15Students celebrated the crowning of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas as the NCAA men's basketball champions.
41:22It was the most lopsided victory in the history of the NCAA tournament.
41:26The UNLV Runnin' Rebels buried Duke 103-73.
41:30People still really didn't believe that this little school from Las Vegas, Nevada, had actually just won a national championship.
41:37Man, it was just so powerful and so emotional. It meant so much to so many people.
41:44It was berserk. It was just a great time. I went about two days without sleep, and I need a
41:51lot of sleep.
41:55It helped the community feel good about itself, and we're a community that normally hosts other people.
42:00It was our party, and our party alone.
42:04That was very exciting because you didn't feel like you were part of a community in Vegas.
42:08You always felt like you were in someone else's town, but the Rebels were something that we could all be
42:14proud of.
42:15And you could be proud to be from Las Vegas because of the Rebels.
42:23It was unifying. All of us in Vegas were part of the same family.
42:32And those guys made it possible.
42:43Just a few months after the championship season, both Larry Johnson and Stacy Augman announced they would return to UNLV
42:50for their senior year.
42:51Unfortunately, the NCAA had different plans.
42:56Citing gross violations dating back to 1977, the organization banned the Rebels from postseason play, leading the players to playfully
43:06question the fairness of the NCAA's decision.
43:10It's very unfair what's going on because when the situation happened, well, I think they gave me back for stealing
43:17them bikes when I was 11 and 12 years old and all the criminal things.
43:21I think that's what that is, Coach.
43:25Eventually, a compromise was reached.
43:28The postseason ban was moved to 1992.
43:32UNLV would be allowed to defend its title.
43:37The 1991 season was historic.
43:39The Rebels were ranked number one all year long and finished the regular season on a 41-game winning streak,
43:46dating back to the previous year.
43:48They didn't just beat opponents.
43:50They crushed them with an average margin of victory and amazing 28 points per game.
43:57Every game I'd tell our guys how tough it was going to be and it wouldn't go out and destroy
44:01everybody.
44:02I remember I'd sit on a bench in practice and I'd sit over to Tim Gergrich, my assistant, and say,
44:07Tim, can we be this good?
44:09I was amazed at how good we were.
44:11That was the most effective machine that we had seen like Pulse Wooden in college basketball.
44:19I mean, that's a perfect team.
44:21The perfection continued in the NCAA tournament.
44:26UNLV breathed through four more games to reach the national semifinals with a record of 34-0, setting up a
44:33rematch with Duke.
44:34One, two, three, play.
44:36When we played them in 91, we were a better team.
44:39We had Hurley now as a sophomore, Leitner, and Grand Hill, even though he was a freshman, was the most
44:46talented player on the court.
44:48At that point, we felt we were their equal.
44:51The fact that they beat us badly the year before was probably a positive for us and a little bit
44:58of a negative for them.
44:59They were getting ready to play the semifinal game against Duke.
45:02The Rebels had to go to a high school in Indianapolis.
45:05And they had a shoot-around the morning of that night's game.
45:10You can see this look on Tark's face.
45:12He's half pissed and he's half freaking out.
45:17I said, Jerry, what's the matter?
45:19He said, I don't think we're ready to play.
45:24Something's not right.
45:26I can feel it.
45:27And Tark called them together at the end of the shoot-around.
45:30I will never forget this.
45:32He looked at them and said, you guys are going to lose tonight because you're not focused enough on this
45:38game.
45:40Whatever the reason, one thing was certain.
45:43Right from the start, it was clear that Duke was a different team.
45:48This time, the Blue Devils were not intimidated and surprisingly climbed to within three points of UNLV late in the
45:55second half.
45:58UNLV being threatened like at no other time this season.
46:03With a little under four minutes to play and UNLV clinging to a 74-71 lead, a close call changed
46:10the game.
46:11I got the ball.
46:12I make a drive to the left.
46:14I get a layup.
46:15I think I get an and one.
46:16A charge.
46:16Yes, they called a charge.
46:18Oh, Anthony.
46:19No basket.
46:19The official calls a charge.
46:21I foul out of the game.
46:23He's out of here.
46:24Five for Anthony.
46:25We were fortunate that he was called for the charge.
46:28But also, we knew he had four fouls and we were trying to take the charge.
46:32Because if he goes out of the game, the game's going to change.
46:36Duke took advantage of Anthony's absence and took control of the game to take a two-point lead in the
46:41final moments.
46:44Duke is 12 seconds away from one of the biggest upsets in Final Four history.
46:51With the season on the line, the Rebels got the ball into the hands of the National Player of the
46:56Year, Larry Johnson.
46:58Larry Johnson brings the ball up.
47:00But without their senior point guard running the show, UNLV appeared disorganized.
47:07Shockingly, the dream of winning back-to-back titles was over.
47:11Duke has done it. Duke has upset UNLV.
47:29Larry Johnson felt so bad after that, that he had on his answering machine,
47:34Okay, I know. I know. I should have taken the last shot.
47:41It was his answering machine for months after that.
47:44He lost a hard figure. It was the toughest loss I've ever had.
47:50I mean, I just love those kids so much.
47:53They were the best.
47:55Even to this day, people refer to it as one of the great teams of all time.
48:07The meltdown in the 1991 semifinal had been shocking,
48:11but it was nothing compared to what appeared in the Las Vegas Review-Journal
48:15two months later, on the morning of May 26, 1991.
48:21I remember seeing that photo and just saying to myself,
48:25Oh my God, no. No.
48:28You have three basketball players in a hot tub with a guy whose nickname is The Fixer.
48:34This is all we need.
48:36That was a terrible picture. There was nothing good about that picture.
48:40Even just how happy they are in the shot.
48:43You just don't want to see your team in a hot tub with a guy who fixes back.
48:47They thought he was a saint, but no one really knew who he was.
48:51Unfortunately, though, you've got to deal with the fallout of it
48:53in terms of answering questions, people speculating,
48:57but, you know, not our finest hour.
49:01Richard, the fixer, Perry, was actually well-known around UNLV.
49:08According to a Time magazine article written in 1989,
49:11he frequently socialized with players and even helped recruit them.
49:16Players like Lloyd Daniels, who he later bailed out of jail after his drug bust.
49:22Even worse, Perry had a checkered gambling past,
49:26having been implicated in the Boston College game-fixing scandal in the late 1970s.
49:31David and Anderson said that they had stayed away,
49:33and all our kids had said the same thing,
49:35but, you know, this picture was taken at least two years ago,
49:39maybe even longer.
49:40I don't even know how you can even begin to justify
49:43somebody of the caliber of Richie Perry being around your program.
49:48I mean, supposedly all these college basketball coaches
49:50know exactly what their players are doing
49:52and who they're hanging out with until there's trouble,
49:54and then it's plausible deniability.
49:57That is the cardinal sin of college basketball,
50:01is any kind of questions with gambling around your program,
50:05even in Vegas.
50:06There's just no way,
50:08no matter how big you are,
50:11no matter what your nickname is,
50:13no matter how you present yourself,
50:16you just, you don't survive
50:18gamblers and hot tubs with your players.
50:21It doesn't happen.
50:25Unfortunately for Tarkanian,
50:27that was also the opinion of Robert Maxson,
50:29a respected educator,
50:31who would become UNLV's president in 1983.
50:35UNLV can become one of the great,
50:37urban universities in this country.
50:41Maxson insisted that he was just as focused on academics
50:44as Tarkanian was on basketball.
50:47His goal was to turn UNLV into the Harvard of the West.
50:52Though he often supported Tark publicly
50:54and openly reveled in the basketball team's success,
50:58the hot tub photo was just too much
51:01of a public relations nightmare.
51:03So on June 7, 1991,
51:06just 12 days after the photo surfaced,
51:09the university president
51:10told the most popular person in the state of Nevada
51:13he was through.
51:18After 18 years.
51:21Although Tark was allowed to coach one final season.
51:25When Jerry Tarkanian was forced out in 1991,
51:30it divided the community right down the middle.
51:32What is this university known for around the nation?
51:34What are they known about?
51:35I've gone all over the country.
51:36What do they say?
51:37What do they say about UNLV?
51:38They say the running ruffles.
51:40And you're probably the slickest cat on the block.
51:42Maxson had a lot of support within the university.
51:45Oisterous crowds several hundred strong
51:47staged a rally on the UNLV campus,
51:49who proclaimed it was now time
51:50to place academics ahead of athletics.
51:54He also had a lot of support
51:56from some important quarters around here.
51:58Steve Wynn became a big supporter of Maxson.
52:03They think that I'm running a university,
52:05that they didn't have any control over me,
52:07which was bullshit,
52:08because I never tried to run anything.
52:11The ordinary people of Las Vegas,
52:13they resented the campaign against Jerry.
52:16They can't say we didn't fill Marina.
52:17There was a Baptist church in West Las Vegas.
52:21They can't say that we didn't have good kids.
52:23And they held a rally for him.
52:24Usually when you do all those things,
52:26you get a raise.
52:27You don't get fired.
52:30The place was pumped.
52:32There's chanting,
52:33keep Tark, keep Tark, keep Tark.
52:35They chanted, demanded,
52:37Tarkanian fight to keep his job
52:38as coach of the running revs.
52:41Finally Tark gets up.
52:43I resented my resignation.
52:44I am resending my resignation.
52:49The place is going nuts.
52:51People are crying.
52:52It's a pandemonium scene.
52:56I called Maxson at home.
52:58He said,
52:59I expect Coach Tarkian to abide by our deal.
53:03How have we gotten to this point
53:04that a coach that won a national championship
53:07two years ago
53:08is now being run off
53:09by some guy from Texas,
53:10Bob Maxson,
53:11that was now telling us
53:12we've got to get rid of him
53:13and get a new coach?
53:17You had rabid fans at that point
53:20that were visibly upset.
53:28The drama grew even darker
53:30in the days before Tark's final season
53:32when a tape surfaced
53:34of a UNLV preseason team practice,
53:37a potential violation of NCAA rules.
53:40I was opposed to it.
53:41I abhorred that type of surveillance.
53:45Within days,
53:46the Maxson administration
53:47was forced to admit
53:48they had secretly taped the practice
53:50and leaked it to the media.
53:52The secret taping happened last month.
53:54A video camera was concealed
53:56inside an air vent in the North Gym.
53:58Dennis Finfrock resigned
54:00after word of the taping got out.
54:02Brad Book authorized
54:03the secret videotaping
54:04of the rebels.
54:05Coach Tim Gugurich
54:06was conducting the classes
54:07at the time.
54:09Book felt there may have been
54:10some violations of NCAA rules.
54:12If so,
54:13he wanted them on tape.
54:15Power has run amok
54:16at the university.
54:18Is UNLV really a rising star
54:20in education
54:20or a police state?
54:23Many of Tark's supporters
54:25were not surprised.
54:28Convinced that over the years,
54:29Maxson's administration
54:31had been behind
54:32the continued leaking
54:33of information
54:34intended to damage
54:36its own basketball program.
54:40So when UNLV finished
54:42the 1992 season
54:44with 23 straight wins,
54:46running Tark's record
54:48in his final two years
54:49to 60-3,
54:51the Thomas and Max Center
54:52was filled with adoring fans
54:55saying a reluctant goodbye.
54:58I'd like to thank everybody
55:00for 19-19.
55:13After turning UNLV
55:15into the only game in town,
55:17in a town that loves its games,
55:19Jerry Tarkanian went out
55:21just like he came in.
55:22a controversial coach
55:24with 509 wins,
55:27four final fours,
55:28and one national championship.
55:33The headliner
55:34of the greatest show
55:36on the strip,
55:37the run-in rebels
55:38of UNLV.
55:44Las Vegas was,
55:45and still is,
55:46a frontier city
55:47where the rules
55:49are still being written
55:50or haven't been written.
55:54We are a run-and-gun
55:55kind of town,
55:56a town where
55:57things were legal
55:58that weren't legal
55:59elsewhere.
56:00So when you look
56:01at the basketball program,
56:04this is part of our image.
56:08It was a perfect match
56:09and a perfect storm.
56:12The legacy of the run-in rebels
56:14in Jerry Tarkanian's era
56:16was dynamic.
56:19It helped UNLV to grow
56:21in terms of enrollment,
56:22in terms of national attention.
56:25Positive and negative,
56:27but the fact is
56:27that the run-in rebels
56:28of Jerry Tarkanian's era
56:30forever changed UNLV.
56:35Very few guys
56:36build programs,
56:37and he built it
56:38in a place where
56:40there was no history
56:41or tradition
56:42or culture
56:43for the game.
56:49The coach has been
56:50not only an inspiration,
56:51in a lot of ways,
56:52he was a father figure
56:53to all of us.
56:58For two years,
56:59UNLV
57:01was the dominant team
57:03in college basketball,
57:05one of the elite programs
57:06of all time.
57:12Anyone that lived in Vegas
57:13during that time
57:14loves that team.
57:16It was a great time
57:17to be in Las Vegas.
57:18It was a great time
57:19of our lives.
57:24We had the greatest group
57:25of guys
57:26that any program
57:27in the country had,
57:28and they don't come
57:29any better.
57:30I wouldn't trade
57:31this experience
57:32for anything.
57:37We were demonized,
57:39but ultimately,
57:40no matter what they say
57:41or think,
57:42they can never take away
57:43what we've accomplished.
57:46And that city
57:47took tremendous pride
57:48in that program,
57:51and still does
57:53to this day.
57:57How come they couldn't
57:58get Larry Johnson
57:59on the doctor?
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