Columnist Ron Kantowski: Bayno may be taking after Arum

Ron Kantowski's column appears Thursday. Reach him at [email protected] or 259-4088.

UNLV basketball coach Bill Bayno was making the rounds last week, telling everybody how he enjoyed his off-season.

It must have lasted all of about six hours on May 16.

As Bayno surely has discovered by now, there is no off-season for the man who holds the reins to the UNLV men's basketball program. Take this past week for instance. Bayno was in the news twice when he might have been on a secluded beach sipping a Corona.

When somebody put a pencil to the many incentives in Bayno's contract, the number on the right side of the equal sign was greater than $600,000. That might seem like a pretty good haul for a coach who practically needed a line pass to sneak into the NCAA Tournament, and then got bounced out of it so quickly you would have sworn he was hustling the tournament chairman's best girl.

But you know what? I don't have a problem with what Bayno makes. More power to the guy. He should get while the getting's good (or at least respectable).

Why is it that people get so worked up over sports salaries? Nobody cares when the guy down at the foundry gets a raise. Nobody asks how much DeNiro gets per flick. So why should we care what Bill Bayno brings home?

Yeah, I know -- he's a state employee. And if you follow Bayno's revenue stream to its most distant tributary, it branches off through the back yard of John Q. Taxpayer.

I suppose that if it came down to paying Bayno or having a pothole in the road I take home fixed, I'd be in favor of paying the guys in the orange vests over the one in the snazzy loafers. But that's only if the money came out of my own pocket. When it comes out of Kenny Guinn's pocket, who really takes the time to break it all down?

Actually, I found Bayno's stance(s) on the proposal to allow betting on UNLV and Nevada-Reno football and basketball games more interesting.

Many years ago, as a concession to ... well, somebody, local sports books agreed not to take action on the Nevada schools, with the bizarre logic that those games would somehow be easier to fix. In light of the proposed bill to make gambling on college sports illegal in Nevada, many lawmakers are calling the UNLV-UNR betting ban hypocritical, and they are right.

Last Wednesday, Bayno went on record saying he was opposed to the books accepting wagers on the Rebels, suggesting it was only asking for trouble. But by Friday, he had changed his tune quicker than Neil Young.

"I heard this yesterday and didn't have time to think about it," Bayno said during an interview on The Clubhouse radio show that airs on KENO 1460-AM. "Gambling's out there, it always will be. And it has never been a problem at UNLV and it never will. Even if it is on the board, we will regulate it and it won't be a problem."

Bayno's bipolar viewpoints were issued so suddenly that even fight promoter Bob Arum had to be blushing.

You don't suppose that somebody within the gaming industry who pumps a lot of money into the UNLV scholarship donor program got word to Bayno that it might behoove him to be on the other side of the issue, do you?

With apologies to Arum, could it be that yesterday Bayno was telling us the truth? And today he's lying about it?

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