Jimmy Caan, Raquel Welch and Maxson

Jerry Tarkanian

Monday, Jan. 12, 2009 | 1:26 p.m.

I have been asked about my appearance in the movie “Blue Chips,” but I can’t remember a lot about that one.

That was during a time when I did about six movies in two or three years. They were calling me all the time about doing something.

I remember “Honeymoon in Vegas” the most. Remember all of those flying Elvises? That one was really fun. They really did a helluva job in that one.

We filmed in a Culver City studio, and it was so nice. I had my own trailer. My daugher, Jodi, was in nursing school at UCLA and she’d come over to the trailer during lunch breaks.

They treated me like a big-time actor. It took one whole week to film my spot in that movie. One whole week!

They were so exact in what they did. If you took a bite out of a sandwich and they changed the scene in 40 minutes, the sandwich had to be the same way. Not two bites. One.

Water in the glass had to be the same level. I couldn’t believe how exact they were in everything.

Jimmy Caan, what a great actor. He was so good to me. He played football at Michigan State, so he’s a jock. We talked sports all the time.

I haven’t talked with him in a while, but he was so good to me. In fact, we start on a Monday in late August. The next day, he asked me if I had seen the Monday Night Football game the previous night.

I said, 'Yeah, I went to a sports bar.' He said, 'Damnit, I was going to have you come over. I wish I had called you. I should have had you over.'

He felt real bad. The next week he took me out to dinner. We went to a place in Santa Monica, a famous place. We were sitting there and in walked Raquel Welch.

She was so beautiful. I couldn’t stop staring at her. She was with two guys. One of them turned around and started biting a towel. They called me over.

I went over and sat with them. My god, she was so good-looking. I couldn’t believe it. They were very nice.

The best basketball movie, not to switch topics too harshly, was “Hoosiers.” “Honeymoon in Vegas” was fun. We had a good time doing that.

Not to switch gears too harshly, but someone asked if I have seen or talked with Robert Maxson, the UNLV president when I was ousted, lately in any way.

I have not crossed path with him, but I did talk with him on the phone a couple of times. We had nice conversations.

I felt, at that point, life is too short to be bitter. Then I talked with him, and it got in the paper that I talked with him.

A couple of my friends told me, 'God, how can you talk to THAT guy?' They gave me hell for talking to him.

We had a real nice conversation. He was president at Long Beach State at the time. He was real nice, very nice.

It pissed off some of my friends when they read that.

I felt I didn’t want to be unhappy. Didn’t want to be bitter. When I think about it, bitterness bothers me more than anything else.

I see how great our kids are doing in life now, how people in the community talk about how great they are.

So many come up to me, particularly at Rebels functions, to talk about them. Hey, they’ve always been great kids. Our own university went out of its way to make it look like they were bad kids.

That was wrong.

But I don’t want to be bitter. I’m in the overtime of my life, which I’ve said plenty of times lately. My time is not going to last long. I kind of want to be happy and let those things go by.

People in Vegas have been and are so nice to me and my family. They’re always saying and doing things that are nice.

That’s what is important. I can’t say enough thanks to everyone in Las Vegas.

Now, next time, I’ll get to that North Carolina game in 1977.

Anyone have some aspirin?