If we had a dollar for every Runnin' Rebels fan who pines for the good old days when Jerry Tarkanian was head coach and the UNLV team ruled, why, we'd have hundreds and hundreds of dollars! Tarkanian's impact was so strong and long-lasting that first, 11 years later, the Runnin' Rebels' fame and infamy are still closely linked to him and second, the team has gone through seven head coaches.
For those of you who missed it, Jerry Tarkanian ("Tark the Shark") coached the UNLV Runnin' Rebels basketball team for nearly two decades. A quote from about.com sums up his tenure in Las Vegas: "Jerry Tarkanian's teams were under almost constant investigation or sanction by the NCAA. He in turn accused the NCAA of singling him out for harassment and eventually won a large cash settlement, an unheard-of victory over the powerful collegiate athletic watchdog. Most Las Vegans couldn't have cared less what the National Collegiate Athletic Association thought of UNLV's recruiting practices. They loved Tark the Shark and his teams. Their public image was a metaphor for Las Vegas: a little wicked, a little wild, and all but unbeatable."
When Tarkanian was hired by UNLV in 1973, he'd coached five years at Long Beach State College, amassing a remarkable 122-20 win-loss record. His first year in Las Vegas, his team, the UNLV Rebels, went 20-6.
At first Tarkanian coached his teams to be slow and methodical, but in his second season at UNLV, his players were short by college-basketball standards, but fast. He immediately changed his style to fast-breaking, quick-shooting, high-flying hoops; the 1974 team went 24-5 and its name was changed to the Runnin' Rebels.
The 1975 team actually reminded fans of the NBA, often scoring more than 100 points a game; they set a college record of 164 points against Hawaii.
In 1977, the Runnin' Rebels made it as far as the semi-finals in the NCAA national tournament; they lost by one point to North Carolina.
In those days, UNLV's college basketball games were played in the Convention Center. Because of the consistent success of the Runnin' Rebels, seats sold out game after game, year after year. That led directly to the building of the Thomas and Mack Arena; when it opened in 1983, it quickly became known as the Shark Tank.
On the negative side, the National Collegiate Athletic Association had been hounding Tarkanian, who’d been highly and visibly critical of the NCAA for years, and in 1976, the organization charged the coach with 10 major infractions of its rules and demanded that UNLV remove him from its athletic program for two years. Tarkanian sued and won in court.
For the next 15 years, the controversy surrounding Tarkanian was continual. He was accused of everything from arranging passing grades and supplying luxury cars for his players to associating with Richard "the Fixer" Perry, who'd been convicted in a point-shaving scandal involving Boston College.
Meanwhile, of course, his teams were racking up winning season after winning season, culminating in its 1990 NCAA championship, beating powerhouse Duke University in the final game by 30 points.
However, following the 1990 season, the NCAA banned UNLV from post-season play as punishment for violations. In order for UNLV to defend its national championship, a compromise was worked out that the ban wouldn’t go into effect till 1992.
In the 1991 season, the Runnin' Rebels were 34-0. During the NCAA semi-finals, UNLV and Duke found themselves in a rematch. This time Duke was the underdog, and this time it was they who pulled the upset, beating the Runnin’ Rebels by a score of 79-77. (Duke went on to beat Kansas in the final game.)
In late May 1991, the Las Vegas Review-Journal published photos of three members of the 1990 championship team with Richard Perry in the hot tub in his backyard.
In early June, Tarkanian resigned as head coach of the UNLV basketball team, but he was allowed to coach the 1992 team, which was disallowed from the post-season playoffs. That team’s record was 26-2.
It wasn’t until 1998 that all the lawsuits between Jerry Tarkanian and the NCAA were settled: the Athletic Association paid Tarkanian $2.5 million. The NCAA never came right out and admitted that it had harassed the coach, but it did say that it would implement some improvements in its enforcement process. When Tarkanian retired from coaching for good, he’d amassed an incredible record of 778-202, never experiencing a single losing season.
The Runnin’ Rebels had a losing season in 1996 (10-16), but hasn’t had one since. Since 1997, the team has made it to the NIT Invitational Tournament six times (1997, 1999, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005) and to the NCAA Tournament twice (1998, 2000).
In 2004, Lon Kruger was named the head coach. In Kruger’s career, he’d coached four years at Kansas State (his alma mater), taking them to four straight NCAA tournament appearances in the late ‘80s; six years at Florida with two Final Four appearances; four years at Illinois; and four years in the NBA coaching the Atlanta Hawks. He’s well-regarded, being mild-mannered and having no baggage that could lead to controversy. He claims to like Las Vegas, especially the climate, which is conducive to his golf game.
In his first two seasons at UNLV, his teams won 17 and lost 13. As of this writing, the Runnin’ Rebels are 14-3, having put together a winning streak of 10 games, its longest in 15 years. It’s their best start to a season since 1992.
