Beyond numbers and into the unquantifiable

Friday, May 9, 2008 | 2 a.m.

When Mike Hamrick resigned as athletic director at East Carolina five years ago to accept the same job at UNLV, the sportswriter who covers the Pirates for the Charlotte Observer said Hamrick would most likely be remembered as an effective administrator who could have used a course in public relations.

If you don’t think raising a ton of money is a prerequisite for becoming an effective administrator, maybe a similar argument could be made for him here.

A story in Thursday’s Sun looked at Hamrick’s first five years on the job, with the focus on grade-point averages, fundraising, his hiring practices, the basketball program’s resurgence, the football program’s futility, and success in lower-profile sports. It was an objective report, but it did not address how Hamrick interacts with others, because that’s much more subjective and harder to quantify.

It also might be his biggest negative.

Hamrick is like a bad masseuse. He rubs people the wrong way. He’s eraser head. Talk to him for any length of time, and you wind up with a hole in your paper and little rubber shavings on your loafers.

Jim Rogers, the university system chancellor, doesn’t think Hamrick raises nearly enough money. The two don’t see eye to eye on other things, and there are official-looking memos in people’s files to prove it.

Rogers recently told me Hamrick is “stubborn” and “inflexible.”

Hamrick says he gets along fine with others, because besides Rogers and couple of regents and maybe three or four coaches he has fired and a couple of idiots who call themselves sportswriters, name somebody who has a problem with him.

Show me an employee willing to speak out against his boss and I’ll show you Fred Dallimore, the former UNLV baseball coach. And maybe Kobe Bryant. But if off-the-record quotes from coaches and other athletic department personnel were $20 bills, I could write a check to the Rebel Athletic Fund that would get Mr. Rogers off Mr. Hamrick’s case, at least for a little while.

Maybe being an athletic director is like being an umpire. Or a sportswriter. Maybe it’s one of those thankless jobs where you hear from people only when you screw up.

Hamrick’s predecessors were Charlie Cavagnaro and Jim Weaver. They were like umpires, too. But before them, Brad Rothermel was athletic director. He never missed a pitch on the outside corner. He was so revered that UNLV still has him on the payroll.

Rothermel was the guy who gave Hamrick his start in athletic administration. Gave him a job in athletic promotions in 1981. OK, so Super Brad, which is what the media called him, might have missed one after all.

But I can understand how that would happen. I used to get along with Hamrick, too. I even wrote a couple of nice things about him. That’s when the phone calls began. Don’t drink the Kool-Aid, they said. And by all means, don’t let him pour it in your ear and tell you it’s raining.

Hamrick even used to say nice things about UNLV coaches he didn’t hire. He spoke highly of Regina Miller, the UNLV women’s basketball coach, and was effusive in praising Mark Philippi, the UNLV strength coach, because he was The World’s Strongest Man, and that impressed his teenage sons a lot more than John Robinson winning a few Rose Bowls.

But when the Rebels couldn’t block or tackle anybody, first-year coach Mike Sanford held Philippi responsible and had him fired. That’s a head coach’s prerogative. But when Miller wanted to do the same thing to one of her peripheral assistants, Hamrick wouldn’t hear of it. Worse, according to sources, he allowed the assistant to turn some of the players against Miller.

After inheriting a program that had won just four games in the three years before her arrival, Miller guided the Lady Rebels to eight consecutive winning seasons and one 14-15 campaign. This year’s team was awful, finishing 8-22, but when people who are supposed to be on your side are causing trouble between the point guard and the power forward, it’s a wonder UNLV won even eight games.

In the end, the assistant kept her job. Miller did not. Life goes on and so do her paychecks, because she had a year remaining on her contract. Never mind that budget crunch, Mike. You can always ask the swimming team to trim another 4 1/2 percent from its budget or tell Daren Libonati to book another Springsteen concert at the Thomas & Mack Center to pay off your women’s basketball coach.

Maybe this wasn’t exactly the same thing as Bob Maxson, the former UNLV president, installing secret cameras in the rafters of the practice gym in the hope of catching Jerry Tarkanian, his basketball coach, breaking an NCAA rule so he could run him out of town. But it’s in the same ballpark.

It’s not the way you are supposed to treat people.

Now Regina Miller has little rubber shavings on her shoes, too.