Tark’s original Runnin’ Rebels were the Globetrotters of college hoops

By John Katsilometes

Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2015 | 10:54 a.m.

To appreciate how mythic a figure Jerry Tarkanian was inside Las Vegas, it helps to remember his legacy outside Las Vegas.

In the early heyday of the UNLV Runnin’ Rebels basketball program, Tarkanian, who died today at age 84, presided over what I’ve always referred to as the Harlem Globetrotters of college basketball. There was no better comparison. The opposition was routinely reduced to the luckless Washington Generals, flailing and gasping five steps behind these guys with tall hair, short shorts and legs that ran all night.

The 1976-’77 Runnin Rebels, the university’s first Final Four squad, were a team that surpassed 100 points 23 times that season and averaged 107 points per game. This high-octane output was produced in the grainy era before the advent of a shot clock or 3-point line. The Runnin’ Rebels jacked it up from anywhere any time.

That team, my favorite Runnin’ Rebel squad, held catchy nicknames bestowed upon them by then UNLV Sports Information Director Dominic Clark, who coined the original “Runnin’ Rebels” moniker by playing off the “Running Utes” of the University of Utah.

Collectively, they were the Hardway Eight, led by Glen “Gondo” Gondrezick, “Sudden” Sam Smith, “Easy” Eddie Owens and the like. There was no Meadowlark Lemon playing for The Runnin’ Rebels, but there might as well have been. They were that great.

As a kid, I watched the UNLV Runnin’ Rebel program ascend to greatness from the unlikely perch of Pocatello, Idaho, home of the Idaho State University Bengals, coached by one of Tark’s best friends in college basketball, Jim Killingsworth.

These guys were real friends sharing a mutual fondness and respect. They had a shared oral fixation on the sideline, too, with Killer chewing gum manically as Tarkanian gnawed on his folded towel. Killer once said that Tark might be the only coach in the country with stronger jaws than his own.

They would meet once in the NCAA Tournament, in the 1977 West Regional finals in Provo, Utah. It’s a game not readily recalled by UNLV devotees who backed the program in that era, those who more vividly remember the next game, a galling loss to North Carolina in the Final Four in the year UNLV likely had more talent than any team in the nation.

But the Runnin’ Rebels were in fight that night in Salt Lake City against Idaho State, trailing at halftime 52-51, at which time Tarkanian leveled his fiercest halftime rant of the season, shouting at the team that if they wanted to return to Las Vegas having been beaten by this team from Pocatello, “Keep playing like you’re playing!”

The Runnin’ Rebels won that game, going away, 107-90. Years later, Killingsworth remembered that game by saying, “They ran us out of the building.” They ran just about everyone out of the building.

Decades passed before I finally met Tark as I was covering the UNLV hoops program for a couple of seasons. Tark was coaching Fresno State by then, a lively bunch who became an eager rival of the Rebels’ program of that era. I met the coach at his suite at the Tropicana, and he was stretched out on the bed talking to Freddie Glusman on the phone, the cord stretched out across the room as he made dinner reservations at Piero’s.

Tark spent 10 minutes or so talking to Freddie trying to coordinate a large dinner party, then turned to me and said, “This city is getting too big, too fast!”

That was in 1996.

The last lengthy conversation I had with Tark was about four years ago, to the day, when the HBO documentary about the UNLV program, “The Runnin’ Rebels of UNLV,” was screened at the Palms. The coach talked of how his kids, and his program, were so impoverished that, “We had no money, and when I say we had no money, we had no money.” Before games, we ate Kentucky Fried Chicken. I convinced my guys that if they ate steak, it would curl up in their stomach and they wouldn’t be able to play.”

He also spoke of the program’s national appeal, “Everybody loved our guys, all over the country, except the president here,” Tarkanian said during his appearance on the Brenden Theaters red carpet before the screening. “Everybody loved them except the president here, and Dennis Finfrock, the athletic director.”

The president referenced was Bob Maxson, who famously drove Tark from the university despite his long history of success and a 60-3 overall record in his final two seasons. Tark was still bitter over his fight with the NCAA that night despite earning a $2.5 million out-of-court settlement from the administrative board in 1998.

“I could go on for hours about the NCAA,” he said. At the time Tarkanian was awarded that check, I wrote that Tarkanian “looked like the kid who’d been in a schoolyard scrape, bleeding from the nose but boasting, ‘You should see the other guy.’ ” I can’t say if he ever let go of his animosity against the NCAA, which he felt stripped him of many more years of coaching dominance — and even national championships — at UNLV.

The last time I talked with Tark was at a daytime event at the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health at Symphony Park a couple of years ago. His wife, Lois, was making an appearance, and Tark was sitting off to the side, alone, on a bench. It was a beautiful morning, the sun shining on the old coach, and I remarked that it was a rare public event where he could sit in peace.

He smiled and said, “I don’t mind being left alone.” The old coach looked perfect, sitting on that bench and watching the action play out. All that was missing was the towel.

Follow John Katsilometes on Twitter at Twitter.com/JohnnyKats. Also, follow “Kats With the Dish” at Twitter.com/KatsWiththeDish.