An e-mail tribute to Gondo

By Ron Kantowski

Monday, July 28, 2008 | 3:47 p.m.

NOW:

I always try to answer my e-mail. Once in a while, when somebody has something interesting to say -- or moves me -- I 'll even publish it. This e-mail from former Rebel basketball fan Greg Miller moved me:

Dear Mr. Kantowski,

You have done a remarkable job bringing Glen Gondrezick's story to both current Las Vegans and to those of us who have moved away but keep the city close to our heart.

I now live in Eugene, Ore., but I grew up in Las Vegas and watched the team from the days of the Hardway Eight to the glory years of Johnson and Augmon and beyond. I watched the Rebels give the city a sense of itself that didn't have to be imposed from the outside. For a Las Vegas kid in the '70s (at least for this Las Vegas kid), UNLV basketball gave the city an identity diametrically opposed to the glitz-and-dead-enders cocktail party the country seemed to see us as. I saw Las Vegans as, well, Rebels, folks who worked that much harder than the next guy, who did things a little differently, who were creative and open-minded and tireless. They were a sort of Springsteen west.

So where did all this come from? I suppose it started with one guy, the one they occasionally called "The Dog" because he was always on all fours out on the court: Gondo, Glen Gondrezick, the fellow from Colorado who I would never match in size or skill but who I always -- ironically enough -- wanted to match in heart. Gondo fed both my sense of the city and my sense of myself.

I have followed Gondo's career and life through the years, through his many triumphs and challenges. I have admired his tremendous perseverance, his work ethic, his ability to collect himself and start anew. In challenging times, when the pressure is on, I still can't help thinking back to those days when I was seven years old, looking out at the giants on the Convention Center court and seeing the guy in jersey number 25 who would stop at nothing to help his team win.

Thank you, Mr. Kantowski, for making sure Las Vegas keeps in its thoughts the man who showed our city its best self. I know I'll keep him in mine.

Greg Miller

Eugene, Oregon

Today is day 121 since Glen Gondrezick was moved to the top of the UCLA Medical Center's list of those needing a heart transplant.

Persons wishing to contribute to funds set up to defray his medical bills can contact any Bank of America or Bank of Nevada branch.

----- How good was Saturday's Miguel Cotto vs. Antonio Margarito welterweight title fight at the MGM Grand? It was so good that even I woke up on on Sunday with a bloody nose, and I only watched on pay-per-view.

----- Note to Oscar De La Hoya and Floyd Mayweather: You do not want a piece of Antonio Margarito. You already know that but I'm just reminding you.

----- The fight was so violent that Jim Lampley, the boxing play-by-play voice of HBO Sports, was moved to tears when presenting a postfight highlight package he called a "tone poem." It basically showed Cotto's blood splattered on various things -- the camera lens, the neutral corners, Margarito's chest. And then, an unforgettable shot of Cotto's little boy sobbing in his mother's arms.

----- Margarito's dad has never seen him fight. After seeing Cotto's son cry, maybe that's a good thing.

----- The closest thing to levity was when Cotto took off his robe to reveal boxing trunks that had "Winchell's" stitched across the rear end. It brought back memories of Rocky I: Rocky Balboa climbing into the ring now. The Italian Stallion. Some meat sign on the back of his robe there. See that? "Shamrock Meat Company." Maybe Margarito was just trying to get the cops on his side. Or perhaps he has a pal named Paulie who needed to make a quick $3,000.

THEN:

When I was in high school, we set up a boxing ring in my dad's garage and I got into it with the 220-pound fullback on our football team. I was like a junior welterweight. (Now I'm like a cruiserweight.)

I recall dancing a bit, like Ali or his former sparring partner, Jimmy Ellis, and the sound of Bill Conti's "Feeling Strong Now" was filling my head when I saw a flash of white and the music suddenly stopped. When I woke up at the count of 48, it felt like somebody had hit me on the bridge of the nose with an anvil.

No mas.

That was the day I announced my retirement from amateur boxing with an 0-1-0 record.