Former Lady Rebel point guard has a yen for pro ball

By Ron Kantowski

Tuesday, July 1, 2008 | 5:43 p.m.

NOW:

In honor of Linda Staley, I think today's blog should be called Now and Yen.

The former Lady Rebel point guard went to the Far East to help Howie Landa, one of three guys who coached the UNLV men's team in 1994-95, put on a basketball clinic for Japanese youngsters. It was in Tokyo where she met Jerald Wrightsil, the former Hawaii Rainbow who starred in the Japanese pro league and was looking for somebody to run a stateside office for a new pro league that had started up in Japan.

This is why Staley handed me a business card Tuesday with her name on it followed by a bunch of symbols that looked like the menu at a Japanese restaurant.

What it actually said is that she is the director of the BJ League's (loose translation: Basketball Japan) international office which, although based in Austin, Texas, is holding a tryout camp at the Tarkanian Basketball Academy this week.

"I like being in the basketball business and although I fell into this job, I'm really enjoying it," Staley said.

Although Staley's last assist to one of the Jordan sisters (Pauline and Geannine) came in 1990, she looks exactly as she did when she played for the Lady Rebels. And every bit as thin.

She said I hadn't changed much, either, because I still ask dumb questions.

----- Seventeen years after he helped the Rebels unlock their only NCAA men's basketball championship, they're giving Larry Johnson a key to the city during Wednesday's Las Vegas City Council meeting. I don't know what a key to the city gets you into, but if I were L.J., I'd have a duplicate made and hide it in the planter behind the mailbox.

----- It's going to be a big sports day at City Hall as I also heard from Michael Schacherbauer, No. 3 on the Sin City Skulls Wheelchair Rugby team. Mike said he and his teammates also are going to be recognized at the council meeting for their dedication and determination and all the trophies they have won. I've seen Schacherbauer play and he gets around the court pretty darn good for a Cardinals fan. He's also an ex-Marine, which means he'll hit you from the Halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli.

----- After dropping the first game on its Australian tour and incurring the wrath of a fan in the chat rooms who said it needed a wake-up call, the UNLV basketball team has been playing like a bunch of crazed kangaroos. The Rebels have won four in a row Down Under and have become Crocodile Dundee's favorite team next to the Geelong Cats of Australian Rules Football.

----- When I read Mike Tyson was being implicated in a murder for hire scheme, my first thought was that he finally was getting even with those guys who messed with his pigeons. Personally, I don't think he's guilty, because the assistant U.S. Attorney said Iron Mike supposedly put up $50,000 to have two men killed, and unless somebody has been paying Tyson to wrestle bears at county fairs, he doesn't have $50,000 to put up.

THEN:

One of the best feelings in the world is hitting a baseball on the sweet spot of a wood bat. One of the worst feelings in the world is hitting a baseball on the handle of a wood bat during April, when the wind is blowing in off Lake Michigan.

One of the worst feelings in the world is hitting a baseball on the sweet spot or the handle of an aluminum bat. Regardless of which way the wind is blowing.