Friends mourn loss of Morris

William "Wildcat" Morris loved to be in front of and amid large crowds.

He loved to play for the undefeated nationally ranked 1944 Las Vegas High School football team at Butcher Field before 5,000 people -- pretty much the whole town back then.

He loved to cheer on the UNLV basketball team during its glory years as he sat among 18,000 fans at the Thomas & Mack Center, a campus arena that many say would not have been built without Morris' dedication and hard work.

And he undoubtedly would have loved the overflowing crowd of friends and family who came to Our Lady of Las Vegas Catholic Church Tuesday to say goodbye to the attorney and hotel-casino owner who served as a University Regent (1971-75) and as a Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority board member (1980-83).

Bill Morris died Friday of a heart attack after he left the Reno-Tahoe International Airport en route to the 30th annual Wolf Pack Dinner at the governor's mansion in Carson City, an event he helped start to benefit UNR athletes. He was 70.

"Bill Morris was a model of strength, courage and integrity," Nevada Supreme Court Chief Justice Charles Springer, a longtime friend, told more than 800 mourners during a co-eulogy. "His life was a moral triumph.

"If there is a more generous, more honest and more courageous person (than Morris), I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting him."

Mike O'Callaghan, a former two-term Nevada governor and now executive editor of the Sun, also recalled Morris' generosity, saying he fed hundreds of UNLV students with comps to the buffet line at the Holiday Casino, which he co-owned in the 1970s and early '80s. Morris later owned the now imploded Landmark hotel-casino.

O'Callaghan noted during his part of the eulogy that Morris' first love, outside his family, was sports -- especially UNLV sports.

"The last time I talked with him was (outside church) a few weeks ago and he wanted to talk about how it was almost football season and what a heavy schedule (UNLV) had this year," O'Callaghan said. "Every year after Jan. 1, he would look forward to the next season.

"There is no person I would rather have as a brother than Bill Morris."

Among the other dignitaries to attend the funeral was longtime Las Vegas businessman and community leader Kenny Guinn, who served as a pallbearer.

The honorary pallbearers were the 13 surviving members of the 1944 Wildcat football team that went undefeated, untied and unscored upon, including community legal leaders John Mendoza, Myron Leavitt and Tom Bell, Morris' longtime law partner.

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