Column: Former UNLV football coach fondly remembered

Shortly after he was laid to rest Friday afternoon, a photograph arrived that pictured some of Wayne Nunnely’s former UNLV players and assistant coaches who had come to his hometown of Monrovia, California, to pay respects.

Doc Wise, Tommy Jackson, Terry Cottle. Randy Whitsitt, Steve Kadoich, Steve Stallworth. It was Cottle who sent the photo. I had covered all of those guys 30-some years ago when I was the new kid on the Rebels’ beat.

It was a poignant ceremony, Cottle said. Harvey Hyde, who preceded Nunnely as UNLV coach, sent flowers. The brother of Velda Nunnely, the coach’s widow, is a pastor who spoke words of comfort to which Cottle added some of his own.

“Good guy, optimist, straight shooter, tough, family guy, spiritual, hard worker. He was just a football guy. Very loyal to the school and the football program,” he said of his former football boss who was 68 when died February 16.

He also was a better coach than a lot of people around here gave him credit for. He spent nearly two decades as a highly regarded NFL assistant coach after he left UNLV, which decided to go in a different direction.

That has happened fairly regularly over the years. On such occasions, I recall writing that when UNLV fired guys who had class and character but perhaps not enough resources to get the job done, they were actually doing them a favor.

I haven’t been writing that as much in recent years. But I’ll always remember that Nunnely was the first guy I ever wrote it about.

Around the horn

— After being credited with three assists during last year’s virus-shortened MLB season, Joey Gallo has picked up one of another sort. The Texas Rangers’ slugger by way of Bishop Gorman delivered needed baseball and softball equipment to the Southwest Baseball League in El Paso, Texas, via the DICK’s Sporting Goods’ Giving Truck and its built-in Zoom capability.

— Many moons ago when he was the Rebels’ basketball coach and his team had taken a rare double-digit home drubbing courtesy of Rick Pitino and Louisville on the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving, Lou Kruger was walking out of his postgame news conference when he noticed a sports writer, who was there as a spectator that night, standing off to the side.

He altered his path to shake my hand and wish me and my family a Happy Thanksgiving.

I never get tired of telling that story. Now that he has called it a career at Oklahoma and is returning to Las Vegas to spend more time with his family — and to look over the shoulder of his son and new Rebels coach Kevin from a proper distance — I look forward to telling it again.

— Former Brigham Young basketball star (and Bishop Gorman 3-point mercenary) Jonathan Tavernari may have paid Lon and Kevin Kruger the ultimate compliment when he wrote on Twitter: “I don’t think I’ve ever been happier for someone who actually kicked my @$$ on a basketball court!” after Kevin was named the Rebels’ new coach. …

I know of at least one Las Vegan who was delighted that Belmont upset Gonzaga for its first women’s NCAA Tournament win. The Belmont campus in Nashville, Tennessee, is where Lady Rebels coach Lindy La Rocque began her coaching career. …

The San Diego Legion opened its fourth Major League Rugby season with a 36-29 loss to Rugby United New York on a grassy knoll in a Las Vegas sports park in which spectators were not allowed, all of which infers the ravages of the pandemic rage on.

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The death of Bob Plager, one of three colorful brothers (Barclay, Bill) who fought and occasionally played hockey for the St. Louis Blues, brought back one of the game’s all-time best quotes, about their father.

“Gus Plager was nicknamed Squirrel because he raised three nuts,” wrote many hockey writers with fondness after Bob died Wednesday at age 78.

Contact Ron Kantowski at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow @ronkantowski on Twitter.