Ron Kantowski says it wouldn’t hurt UNLV to give a big fibber a big scholarship, because he’s not the only dreamer among us

By Ron Kantowski

Wednesday, Feb. 13, 2008 | 2 a.m.

Once upon a time there was this high school kid who did a number of foolish things. One of these was stripping down to his tube socks and running through the back streets of his hometown as if his hair were on fire. Another was standing up an old girlfriend two hours before the senior prom. And then there was the time he got arrested ... for loitering.

Maybe these random acts of idiocy weren’t quite as grievous as Kevin Hart, that big kid from Fernley, lying in front of the student body about receiving a full ride to play college football at California. But I sure could have used that hat he put on at the news conference when the local cops caught me and my buddies with our pants down.

Sure, Hart told a heck of a fib. Geppetto would have had to make two trips to his woodshed to carve this Pinocchio-like fairy tale. Hart had this story and he was sticking to it, because when you get knee-deep in the ... um, deception, sometimes it’s hard to come clean. Or get it off your shoes. Just ask Roger Clemens.

Finally, Hart admitted he did not ... well, how best to put it? ... have college football recruiting relations with Cal and those other schools.

But I guarantee that as you are reading this there is a guy down at the corner tavern fabricating a story about making it to Double-A with the Giants or the night he seduced the head cheerleader and her older sister.

The way I see it, 98 percent of the male population embellishes how good they were in sports or with the ladies, especially when there is beer involved. Kevin Hart just beat a lot of us to it. He might have exposed his fragile ego, but at least he didn’t expose himself, and not all of us can say that.

It’s hard to say how his story is going to turn out, but I know how it should turn out: Somebody should offer him a second chance, an opportunity to realize his dream of playing big-time college football, a chance to show that Cal and Oregon and Illinois and Oklahoma State and The Mean Machine and anybody else that didn’t recruit the big kid from the small town that they made a mistake.

Somebody should offer Kevin Hart a scholarship.

And that somebody should be UNLV.

What has Mike Sanford got to lose? In the grand scheme of things, is another three-touchdown loss at TCU such a terrible thing when your career coaching record is 6-29?

Besides, who says Hart is any worse than the offensive linemen the Rebels already have? According to Popular Blue Chip Mechanics and some of those other magazines dedicated to high school recruiting, Hart is a two-star prospect. The Rebels have a whole roster of those. Heck, they just signed 21 more last week. Is one more going to make them any worse?

As for how Sanford would benefit, well, where do I start?

• For starters, Sanford’s already a nice guy, but offering Hart a scholarship would make him an even nicer guy. We could start calling him Father Flanagan. Or Dr. Phil. Or Bobby Bowden Jr.

• Think of the positive publicity. For once, Sanford could show up on media day with a player the out-of-town writers would actually want to interview.

• Then there’s always the chance that Hart, who stands 6-foot-5 and weighs 300 pounds, might be able to block. Or at least get in somebody’s way.

• It would be a perfect match. Hart said the reason he concocted the story about being recruited by Cal is that he has always dreamed of playing Division I football.

... and so do the Rebels.