Hamrick: Football can find success in Las Vegas

By Rob Miech

Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2008 | midnight

UNLV athletic director Mike Hamrick moonlights as an assistant football coach. He meets with recruits and their parents. He watches and talks with current Rebels.

He hears how they tell prospects to come to Las Vegas.

“Because we’re gonna win,” Hamrick said this week. “They really believe they’ll win.”

That’s why Mike Sanford, author of three consecutive two-victory seasons at UNLV in his first stint as a head coach, is around for a fourth season.

It’s why the Rebels upset 15th-ranked Arizona State on Saturday night to improve to 2-1.

“If the players don’t buy into the coaches, as an AD, that’s your red flag, man,” Hamrick said. “The leaders on the team and players bought into the fact that we can be successful and we can win.

“I saw that in the offseason, in the winter. I saw it in recruiting and in our players. That’s the key to being successful; coaches getting players to buy into what they’re trying to do.”

Hamrick, a former Marshall linebacker and East Carolina athletic director, has supported Sanford and believed in his approach, philosophy and system. Sanford is grateful.

“He understands what it takes to build a football program,” Sanford said. “He’s been around football and coaches, he played football and he’s seen programs get built.”

Hamrick, who signed Sanford to a five-year contract, heard and saw enough toward the end of last season to continue the relationship for the 2008 season.

That surprised some, including Jim Rogers, the chancellor of Nevada’s Board of Regents and a prominent UNLV booster who has publicly pondered the value of such an expensive, losing program.

Over trout almondine in June, Rogers said Sam Boyd Stadium ought to be leveled and football can “damn near run in the basement, in perpetuity, and we’ll tolerate it.”

A few weeks earlier in his back yard overlooking the Rio Secco Golf Club in Anthem, Hamrick said he could never envision UNLV without a football program.

He stuck by Sanford. He said this thing is just starting to build. He said as long as you see improvement you have to feel good that you’re eventually going to be where you need to be.

“In the next couple of years, we’ll benefit from the success we have in football,” Hamrick said in May. “Do we want to win more than two games? Absolutely. I think football can be successful here.”

After practice Sunday afternoon, Sanford said Hamrick’s praise and support have been invaluable.

“It may appear on the outside that things aren’t good,” Sanford said, “but you have things in place on the inside that are encouraging and give you hope. That’s positive for everybody.”

Hamrick beamed Monday about Phillip Payne’s amazing one-handed touchdown catch that pushed the Arizona State game into overtime.

In his office, Hamrick unfolded a color picture of the reception that took up half the front sports page of a Phoenix newspaper.

“It looked like he was grabbing an orange,” Hamrick said. “I’ve only seen Randy Moss make a better catch.

“The kids needed it and they deserve it. The coaches needed it and they deserve it. They’ve been beat up. They deserve what they get.”

Wow, what’s going on? People circled Hamrick in the Sun Devil Stadium press box Saturday night. You guys must be doing a pretty good job recruiting. You’re starting to get some athletes and some talent.

“It takes a long time,” Hamrick said. “If you feel you have the right coach, you just have to get in the bunker, keep working and keep providing resources, and hope things turn around.

“And you have to get some breaks. I’m a firm believer that you make your own breaks. That’s what happened Saturday night.”

Hamrick basked in the glory on the faces of UNLV’s coaches and players during the late-night flight home.

“We have nine left,” he said. “But no matter what happens, these players believe they can win.”