Just being a Rebel is enough

By Rob Miech

Thursday, Aug. 7, 2008 | 2 a.m.

He can set up a grill in 30 minutes and a bookcase in 20. If Lowe’s sells it, he can assemble it.

He’s also a wiz at Stratego and recently cracked the top 100 in an online version of the chess-like military strategy board game.

But Rob Ketchum gets most excited when he slips on his red No. 13 UNLV practice jersey and plays basketball for coach Lon Kruger.

Ketchum is UNLV’s most unheralded player, a walk-on with no scholarship.

Walk-ons have a thankless role — setting picks and taking charges in practice so other Rebels can get better. They rarely (sometimes never) play in games. They arrange class schedules around practice. They pay for their own tuition, books and living expenses.

Ketchum can’t pay his cell phone bill — rent and food are priorities — so calls zip directly to voice mail. He doesn’t have a car and chips in for gas with teammate and housemate Rene Rougeau.

Still, Ketchum, 22, can’t believe his good fortune.

“I’m so thankful to be here, in Las Vegas, playing basketball,” he says. “I’ll do everything I can this season. If I get in a game, I get in. If I don’t, I don’t. I can’t get selfish about it, seeing where I was a year ago.”

A year ago Ketchum had finished playing at Sierra College and was toiling at a Lowe’s home improvement store in Sacramento, saving every dollar to continue his schooling at UNLV. Maybe, just maybe, he’d get the nerve to walk onto a Rebels basketball team that had just gone to the Sweet 16.

He was encouraged by his former Sierra teammates Matt Johnson, Brad Langston, James Doran and Eddie Reilly, who had made the jump from community college to Division I programs.

“They’ve always felt that I should be at a D-I program,” Ketchum says. “They gave me confidence. That felt good, hearing how happy they were for me. It’s good to have friends like that.”

Sierra coach John Fusano cold-called UNLV assistant coach Greg Grensing on behalf of Ketchum.

The moment he saw him, Grensing was impressed with the size of the 6-foot-6, 215-pound swingman. But Ketchum didn’t immediately hear back from the UNLV assistant.

Maybe it’s time to call it quits, Ketchum thought. He got odd jobs through craigslist.org.

Three weeks later Ketchum returned to his Las Vegas apartment with his mother and older brother to hear a phone message from Grensing.

Want to come on out to practice?

Ketchum played it over and over.

“We were hysterical,” he says. “I was like a kid on Christmas.”

Danny Ketchum works in construction and helps his brother when he can. Danny didn’t pursue basketball out of high school, so Rob Ketchum feels he’s playing for both of them.

Mandi Denney, Ketchum’s girlfriend of three years, stays on him about his class work and grades, and she fills the fridge when she visits from Sacramento. That makes the Anthem home that Ketchum shares with Rougeau, UNLV power forward Matt Shaw and another student very happy.

At a summer prep tournament two weeks ago in Las Vegas, Ketchum and Rougeau worked 16-hour days recording statistics and entering them into a database for a recruiting service. That cell phone might work soon, too.

Grensing believes Ketchum could have played somewhere in Division I basketball.

“He kind of fell through the cracks,” Grensing says. “He has sacrificed and handled adversity well, and he has the respect of all his teammates. They consider him a peer.”

After graduating from Sheldon High in Sacramento, Ketchum went to Tuskegee University, a historically black college. But the South wasn’t for him. He transferred to Sierra, in Rocklin, Calif., and set his sights on UNLV.

He and his mom, Kim Madden, have taken out loans, which helped when Tuskegee wanted $1,300 in unpaid fees to release his transcripts to UNLV.

The delay with the NCAA Clearinghouse until after the fall semester, and breaking a bone in his left hand in February, limited Ketchum’s practice exposure with the Rebels last season.

Now the fifth-year senior is eligible, healthy and prepared to press the Rebels in practice from the start of the upcoming season to the finish.

During 10 days of official workouts before the Rebels went to Australia, Ketchum looked smooth and solid. He sliced in for transition layups, hit midrange jumpers, passed to open teammates and grabbed rebounds in traffic.

“I’m a competitor,” Ketchum says. “That’s why I’m here. They give it to me, so I give it back. I go hard every day, so it makes the games easier for them.”

The unknown Rebel also resembles one of the most recognizable figures on the planet. At the end of one of those June practices, a fan yelled “O-ba-ma!” at Ketchum. The physical similarities between Ketchum and the Democratic presidential candidate are uncanny. Teammates laughed. Ketchum just smiled and looked down.

He didn’t go to Australia because he had to take summer classes. He’s working toward a degree in marketing and physical education. He might be a sports agent.

“This is the opportunity of a lifetime for me,” Ketchum says. “I’m thankful that coaches put up with me.”

Ketchum pinches himself when he runs through that tunnel at the Thomas & Mack Center and those fireworks explode. When the crowd roars during timeouts, he can’t believe he’s in the middle of it.

He grins about recent pickup games with newcomers Oscar Bellfield, Brice Massamba, DeShawn Mitchell and Darris Santee, and a promising season that will feature guard Wink Adams.

“A lot of people downplay UNLV,” Ketchum says. “I wouldn’t advise that this season. They learned their lesson last season.”

Asked what would constitute a perfect 2008-09 season for him, Ketchum doesn’t mention playing in a real game or sinking a jump shot.

A national championship, he says without hesitation. What could be more perfect?

“He’s ideal,” Grensing says. “He has no ego. His agenda is only to help the team. He gives us size, strength and athleticism you normally don’t get in walk-ons. We’re the beneficiaries of a selfless young man.”