Columnist Steve Carp: Success doesn't have to be fleeting

THE INTERIOR OF UNLV's athletic house is starting to show some semblance of order. But Rebel fans are more interested in the exterior, because that's what they're used to seeing.

With associate athletic director Jerry Koloskie and assistant AD Wendy Meyers smoothing all the rough edges inside, things are starting to run more efficiently, which is important. But with another school year beginning today, it's time to address the outside of the house, that being the on-the-field exploits.

It wasn't long ago that UNLV was competitive virtually across the board in athletics. While the Rebel basketball team was winning conference titles and contending for the national championship, sports like soccer, softball and track were dominating the conference and making runs at national honors.

But the '90s have not been kind to the athletic program, since Brad Rothermel stepped down as athletic director and Jerry Tarkanian was forced out as basketball coach. There has been a noticeable dropoff in the overall performance level of UNLV's athletic program.

And while it is nice to see progress has been made in terms of graduating more student-athletes, raising the cumulative grade-point average and making more of a commitment to gender equity, the fans' real interest is in wins and losses.

There has been some success in some areas -- witness the golf team's national championship last spring and the individual NCAA men's tennis titles two years ago. And last spring, the basketball team returned to the NCAA Tournament.

But success has been fleeting. Consider in its first two years in the WAC, UNLV has won a grand total of one title -- Bill Bayno's team capturing the 1998 WAC tournament after finishing .500 in the regular season. While the school boasts having members of seven sports competing in NCAA events, the facts are that from a team perspective, UNLV is coming up woefully short.

With UNLV leaving the WAC next year, now is the perfect time for AD Charlie Cavagnaro and his staff to make a renewed commitment to on-the-field excellence.

Things figure to be tougher next year in a more compact eight-team league and if the Rebels are going to hold their own across the board, they can't afford to wait until next summer to put the pieces in place. It has to be done now.

It means making an honest assessment of each sport and seeing where the strengths and weaknesses are. It means determining what needs to be done immediately to improve things and what can wait.

It also means making sure the funding is in place to give each program a realistic chance of meeting the goal of being able to compete for a championship. And that means going out and raising the money to do it.

As we've seen with Bayno, you need players to win. And to recruit effectively, you have to have money. You need it to hire the people who can recruit as well as to coach.

Cavagnaro needs to figure out how much it will take for his 15 programs to achieve their on-the-field goal, then find a way to get the necessary funding.

If he doesn't, the status quo will prevail -- an occasional flash of brilliance amid a landscape strewn with mediocrity.

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