Young Turks win a soccer game worth watching

By Ron Kantowski

Monday, June 16, 2008 | 6 a.m.

NOW

Billy left his home with a dollar in his pocket and a head full of dreams.

He said somehow, some way, its gotta get better than this.

----- Rod Stewart, "Young Turks"

Although Rod Stewart is a huge soccer enthusiast, I don't think the first two lines from his 1980s hit was referring to the young turks that play soccer for Turkey. Because it simply couldn't get any better than that nation's come-from-behind victory over the Czech Republic in Sunday's Euro 2008.

If you are an American who believes watching soccer is like watching paint dry, you weren't watching the Turks rally from two goals down after 71 minutes (of 90 plus stoppage time) to pull out a 3-2 victory on ESPN2.

The last time I saw somebody rally from two goals down that late in a soccer match was ... in a movie. There was this old flick called "Victory" in which Sylvester Stallone played goal for a bunch of Allied POWs that included the great Pele and Michael Caine, and they rallied to beat the German national team when Sly saved a penalty kick, but this was even better.

Soccer? Like watching paint dry? Maybe, if you don't understand the nuances of the game and it's tactical parry and thrusts. But if this game was a can of Sherwin Williams, then Michelangelo was swinging the brush.

----- Sometimes, University system regent Mark Alden makes about sense as your crazy uncle Sid. Make that a lot of times. But at least Alden had the good sense to vote "no" to the five-year contract his colleagues ratified for Kathy Olivier, the new women's basketball coach at UNLV. Alden felt five years was too long. With UNLV reeling from a $96 million budget shortfall from Carson City that will result in the football team taking the bus to several games, three years would have been plenty.

----- At least Alden wasn't the only one who had questions about Olivier's contract. Steve Sisolak and Jane Geddes wondered why it was back loaded with most of the base salary being paid during the last two years instead of the first three. That's easy. UCLA still is paying Olivier after pushing her out as coach with time left on her contract there. So she could afford to be the Fram Oil Filers guy in reverse. Instead of paying her now, UNLV will pay her later.

----- Olivier's contract averages to about $180,000 over five years, which UNLV athletic director Mike Hamrick said is "market value" for a women's basketball coach. If that's true, then the market value needs to change. Paying nearly $200,000 for a coach of a program that has never turned a profit is crazy when there's no money in the cigar box.

----- It would seem that women's basketball and baseball are on about the same level at UNLV, and a lot of other places not named Tennessee and UConn. At UNLV, baseball coach Buddy Gouldsmith, who recently survived another losing season despite his head being on the chopping block, is paid a yearly salary of $77, 681 -- or more than $100,000 less than the new women's basketball coach. Earlier this year, I said that Gouldsmith was overpaid. I would now like to retract that statement.

---- - As Ricky Riccardo used to tell Lucy, Hamrick has some "splainin' to do" for how he distributes comp tickets to UNLV basketball and football games. There's been an audit request, and the list of those who received freebies over the past five years is 503 pages -- 503 pages! -- long. When I tried to open it on my computer, an alarm sounded and a pop-up message said I needed more RAM. While that also may be considered "market value," 503 pages of free tickets seems like a lot when you are $96 million in the hole.

----- Alden and Gerry Bomatti, UNLV's vice president of finance, were overheard arguing about something at the Board of Regents meeting, which is par for the course at these events. "These people are nuts," wrote an onlooker in an e-mail, which wasn't so much meant to characterize those two, but the whole UNLV academic community. There was another report that a guy who resembled a young Jack Nicholson flew over the UNLV cuckoo nest and asked if he could watch the World Series, but we're still waiting on confirmation.

THEN

They ran the 24 Hours of Le Mans auto race this weekend, which rekindled memories of when my pals and I tried to reenact the famous twice-around-the-clock sports car endurance race on a slot car track in my old man's garage. Alas, the 24 Hours of Whiting, Ind., was canceled after about five hours when the motor in my HO-scale Porsche 917 starting smoking and stinking up the garage, our dog mistook Mike Kubacki's Ferrari 512 for a field mouse and the chief steward (my mom) said it was time to put on my pajamas and get ready for bed.