Sanchez committed to building support system for UNLV football

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Tony Sanchez fist bumps with UNLV Athletic Director Tina Kunzer-Murphy after he is announced as the new UNLV football team head coach Thursday, Dec. 11, 2014, in the Stan Fulton Building ballroom.

By Taylor Bern (contact)

Published Thursday, Dec. 11, 2014 | 2:59 p.m.

Updated Thursday, Dec. 11, 2014 | 4:30 p.m.

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Las Vegas Sun sports editor Ray Brewer gives us all the lowdown on UNLV's newest football coach, Bishop Gorman High's Tony Sanchez. Then Sun sports reporter Taylor Bern gets into the issues plaguing UNLV basketball this season.

UNLV wanted to try something different with its football program, and with 46 seasons of mostly awful results, that’s understandable. Enter a successful, fiery high school coach who just might be able to drum up the money and community support necessary to bring the Rebels out of the Division I dark ages.

“We need to be competitive,” President Don Snyder said today via teleconference. “Historically, that has not been the case with our football program.”

The worst kept secret in town for weeks hit another checkpoint this afternoon as Snyder and Athletic Director Tina Kunzer-Murphy introduced Tony Sanchez as the university’s 11th football coach. Now the only thing stopping Sanchez from being officially official is Tuesday’s Board of Regents meeting, where they are expected to approve his four-year contract worth $500,000 annually.

“I want everyone in this room to know how excited I am for this opportunity,” Sanchez said to a crowd filled mostly with supporters and fellow UNLV coaches. “I know it was a bold statement when I was chosen for this position.”

Sanchez recently won his sixth straight state championship at Bishop Gorman High by completing an undefeated season that’s expected to earn the Gaels the unofficial national championship. His college credentials are almost nonexistent — he played receiver at New Mexico State and was briefly a graduate assistant — but Sanchez said he expects to have a staff in place by the end of next week that will calm many of those concerns.

“I don’t think I have all the answers,” he said, “but what I do believe is I’m going to surround myself with a talented support system.”

Speaking of support, everyone involved in the process has said that just hiring a coach isn’t enough for UNLV, not if the Rebels expect to make progress within the Mountain West, let alone the rest of the country. New and updated on-campus facilities, setting aside for a moment any stadium discussion, are going to be vital.

“In this day and age, I think kids really care about where they spend their (week) and that’s a football facility,” Sanchez said. “Stadium’s been a big talk but the biggest thing is making sure that we provide the right academic atmosphere for our kids. Study halls, training tables, weight rooms and coaches offices, I think that’s the biggest thing that we need to address.”

The obvious follow up question — Who’s going to pay for that? — has been met with an equally obvious answer for weeks now. The Fertitta family, who own and operate the UFC and Stations Casinos, was a big part of Sanchez’s success at Gorman, providing the funds to give the Gaels better facilities than almost any other high school program in the country, plus UNLV.

No one has ever suggested one family or one person was going to fix something as broken as UNLV football — an idea Sanchez, Kunzer-Murphy and Snyder all reiterated today — but it’s only logical to think some of that help could come from the people Sanchez highlighted early in his opening statement.

“I want to thank the Fertitta family for being so generous to not only Bishop Gorman but this entire community and for their relentless support,” Sanchez said. “They’re one of the first people I talked to when this process occurred and they were overwhelmingly supportive.”

On the sidelines at Bishop Gorman, Sanchez even wore a UFC lanyard. That’s why it was strange 10 minutes later when Kunzer-Murphy reacted to an admittedly awkwardly-phrased question about confirming the university had a commitment from the Fertittas by laughing and then lashing out.

“The answer to your question is absolutely no, and I’m disappointed in how it’s been perceived and projected from the media,” she said. “… It’s been inconsiderate to the family and inconsiderate to us.”

Administrators conducted other phone interviews but everything indicated that this search was over before it started. A high school coach, even one with Sanchez’s accolades, is probably not handed the keys to a program without some other key support in place. Where that support ultimately comes from remains to be seen but it would be surprising if the Fertittas were not involved.

What’s more important is what happens after the initial surge. The Rebels need better on-campus facilities, and they also need a dozen other things. That includes an overall talent upgrade on the recruiting trail while also managing UNLV’s precarious position with the NCAA’s Academic Progress Rate.

If players don’t like the new staff and leave the program with uncompleted classes, that’s going to hurt UNLV. That will have to be closely monitored the next few weeks while the staff gets going on selling their vision.

“We need to become a choice. We need to get in the conversation,” Sanchez said.

Leading the city’s best program for the past six years is one obvious way to get better players onto campus. The Rebels signed two players from Bishop Gorman in the past three years — linebacker Marc Philippi and offensive lineman Ron Scoggins — and that number figures to increase considerably, though no one is expecting the Gaels’ best players to suddenly follow their former coach.

The more interesting angle is how Sanchez and company will recruit from the local coaches that he’s been destroying for the past several years.

“I’ve got great relationships with the overwhelming majority of them,” Sanchez said, drawing a chuckle.

The rebuilding process is underway and with many of UNLV’s best players — receiver Devante Davis and offensive lineman Brett Boyko among them — on the way out, Sanchez can start from the ground up with the roster as well as any upcoming building projects.

Whether this hire ultimately works any better than other recent ones, the Rebels believe it’s worth a shot. Three of the last four coaches left with winning percentages at .271 or lower, so there’s not much room to get worse.

“I don’t know what everyone has done in the past but I know what I’m going to do,” Sanchez said. “I’m going to bring a sense of energy, a sense of motivation. We’re going to strive on building the entire person, not just the athlete, because that’s not the most important thing. I’ve always believed that winning is the byproduct of the way you carry yourself.”

UNLV 4505 Maryland Parkway Las Vegas, NV 89154 Taylor Bern can be reached at 948-7844 or [email protected] . Follow Taylor on Twitter at twitter.com/taylorbern.

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