Nutt not fretful over Strip's distractions

SCOTT CAIN
ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE

LAS VEGAS -- A devilish smile sweeps across Jermaine Brooks' face as he tries to make his case.
Las Vegas, you say? It's like any other big city, Arkansas' junior defensive tackle insists.
A large part of this desert oasis does resemble Anywhere, USA. Las Vegas has nice neighborhoods, schools, parks and libraries, none of which are near the Razorbacks' hotel as they prepare to play UNLV in the Las Vegas Bowl on Thursday.
Unless they go out of their way, the players will walk by more strip clubs than strip malls this week. They'll have to pass a few thousand square feet of gaming tables and slot machines just to leave their hotel. If they gamble, then they can drink alcoholic beverages for free, if they choose.
Prostitution is legal in certain areas of Nevada, including Nye County about an hour's drive from Las Vegas.
Temptation lurks in most big cities; it struts here. And it does so 24 hours a day. Nothing closes.
To Las Vegas residents, gambling and entertainment are industries that support the local economy. To Arkansas' 107 football players, most of whom have never visited Sin City, it's a new experience.
The Strip is a far cry from Fayetteville's Dickson Street.
So Houston Nutt has that inalienable right as a college football coach to fret all he wants about potential distractions, such as a player drinking too many of those free plastic cups of beer and then picking a fight or losing his per diem in a 30-minute blackjack binge.
Coaches and officials at five schools whose teams have played in the Las Vegas Bowl were interviewed and each said they had no trouble with any of their players, short of a couple of curfew violations.
The advice from Nutt's colleagues is to not overheat his worry engine. He'll try not to.
"So many lights, so many things to do," Nutt said. "A lot of things are legal that they're not going to be used to, so it always brings concerns to coaches, especially when there's a game."
Nutt's concern wouldn't be valid if none of the players intended on experimenting. But many will.
"I feel sorry for anybody who hasn't turned 21 yet," said Brooks, who's from California and has visited Las Vegas.
OK, so boys will boys, and they can as long as they're of legal age, which includes 44 of them in this instance.
Nutt is trusting that those of age and under age can handle themselves appropriately, so he hasn't imposed a curfew for the first two nights. He'll scale back the curfew as the week goes on and will treat Wednesday like a regular night before a game.
Nutt said he has modeled his rules for this trip after the ones that Lou Holtz used when he took the Razorbacks to the 1978 Orange Bowl and Nutt was a sophomore quarterback.
"I'm going to really put our seniors in charge the first two nights," Nutt said. "I'm going to let those guys kind of monitor, and I'm not going to have a bed check the first two nights.
"I'm going to see if they can handle it, and then we'll go from there. If we hear things aren't going right the first night, I might put a curfew on them. But I'm going to go ahead and let them see Vegas."
Several players said Nutt won't be disappointed.
"I think we've got a good bunch of guys, so I don't think it's going to be a problem," senior linebacker Jim Ed Reed said. "We've got good senior leadership, and I don't think anybody is going to mess with us. They know Coach Nutt is good about keeping his word about stuff like that, so if you mess up one time you're not going to get a second chance."
Nutt arranged for Las Vegas policemen to speak to the team about where to go and where not to go in the city. He also has put his graduate assistant coaches on notice that they are to keep an eye out for players teetering on the edge of trouble.
Everybody seems to be clear on at least one no-no -- betting on college or professional sports. It's against NCAA rules and the players are informed of that almost the first day they step on campus.
Players are permitted to gamble on casino games, such as card games, roulette or slot machines.
Nutt will not bar players from gambling, but he said he won't encourage it either. He was considering not allowing players to gamble in the team hotel, which is the Golden Nugget. He said he definitely won't let them drink there.
And even though there is no bed check the first couple of nights, the players have been urged not to indulge in excess. It's easier to lose track of your senses and time here.
"If you don't have a curfew, you could be somewhere and not know [how late it is] because nothing shuts down," said Tina Kunzer-Murphy, a lifelong Las Vegas resident who is director of the bowl.
If turning a bunch of young men loose on Las Vegas with few restrictions seems permissive, it is. But a coach can only go so far in protecting his players from themselves, other coaches said.
Utah Coach Ron McBride, whose team beat Fresno State 17-16 in the Las Vegas Bowl last year, laid down no gambling and no drinking rules in the team hotel. "If a booster is running around, we didn't want to have a bunch of players sitting around drinking beer and pulling on slot machines," McBride said.
Gambling and drinking anywhere else in town was allowed.
"How are you going to prevent them from doing that?" McBride said.
McBride did impose a midnight curfew. He also enlisted two university police officers to travel with the team and had them watch the team floor of the hotel from midnight to 5 a.m. "to keep things quiet and so we didn't have anybody up there who didn't belong up there," McBride said.
San Diego State Coach Ted Tollner set a 2 a.m. curfew when his team played in the 1998 Las Vegas Bowl.
Going to Las Vegas wasn't new to the Aztecs because they play UNLV there every other year as part of the Mountain West Conference. But those are one-night stayovers. Spending a week there gives a coach reason to take precautions.
"It was a concern to us," Tollner said. "We talked to our guys and told them we would let them stay out until 2; we wouldn't put a clock on them. But I don't want any problems. Two nights before the game we were going back to our normal bedtimes.
"We wanted them to see it and walk around. They ended up having a heck of a time. We lost to North Carolina, but we weren't a team that was tired or had problems."
Tollner assigned two graduate assistants to scout the casinos for San Diego State players who might be causing trouble and said they saw none.
Like McBride, Tollner prohibited gambling and drinking in the team hotel.
"Even with adult coaches, it's not a good environment to have coaches sitting in a bar," Tollner said. "It can be misconstrued as, 'Oh, the coaches are down there drinking all night.' So we had a hospitality room upstairs if the coaches wanted to have a beer."
North Carolina beat San Diego State 20-13 in that 1998 game and kept a shorter leash on its players than most teams. Players were not allowed to drink or gamble anywhere, assistant head coach Donnie Thompson said. The Tar Heels have a no alcohol policy all season.
Curfew was 1 a.m. the first couple of nights and then it was reduced each night closer to the game, Thompson said.
North Carolina stayed at Caesars Palace, which no longer is one of the team hotels. The Golden Nugget and MGM Grand house the teams now.
Staying at the Nugget made it easier for Utah to monitor its players, McBride said.
"It's smaller and you know right where they are," McBride said. "You're right downtown. There are a lot of things they can do down there. Not all of them are wholesome but they have lots of things for families. The people at the Golden Nugget are just great.
"The MGM is nicer and more swank, but it's so big you could get lost in there and not know where all of your players are."
UNLV will stay at the MGM beginning Monday. But for the Rebels, seeing a casino is like an Arkansas player seeing a Wal-Mart. They're exposed to them year-round.
First-time visitors or longtime citizens, anybody can find trouble if they're looking for it.
"It's just like any other big city," Las Vegas police spokesman Tirso Dominguez said. "If they're 21 years of age, the hotels and properties will treat them like they're 21. And if they have trouble, they'll call us."
Nutt is betting that it won't come to that.

This article was published on Sunday, December 17, 2000

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