Santoro: Pack’s Wilson hoping to dodge the ghost of Gordon McEachron

Sports Fodder:

Ken Wilson, judged on his 2-10 record, is the least successful Nevada Wolf Pack head football coach in the program’s history. Wilson’s .167 winning percentage is the worst in school history for those who coached more than four games. Gordon McEachron is second-worst, having won just 20 percent (6-of-30) of his games from 1955-58. Even Chris Tormey, who won 34 percent of his games (16-31 from 2000-03) is ahead of Wilson. Tormey, though, was also 2-10 his rookie year but he improved every year, going from two to three to five to six wins before athletic director Chris Ault fired him and then took his job. We don’t believe current Nevada athletic director Stephanie Rempe would fire Wilson and take his job, but Wilson shouldn’t get too confident. Rempe, after all, didn’t hire him and Ault did hire Tormey. That’s where Wolf Pack football is right now, Pack fans. The coaching goals are McEachron and Tormey.

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McEachron, though, faced challenges that would have destroyed Wilson and forced him to resign and become Ault’s full-time chauffeur. McEachron, who also had to teach gym class, had almost no resources. The Pack program he was handed had zero funding, just two assistant coaches, paid just $7,300 a year (Wilson made roughly $20,000 per quarter last year) and had no scholarships or hope. All of McEachron’s players had to come from the school’s enrollment of just under 3,000 students. Players had to pay for their own room, board and tuition. Five of the 45 Pack players at the start of the 1957 season couldn’t suit up for the season opener because the team had just 40 uniforms. McEachron was 3-20-1 after his first three seasons. Late in that third season (1957), the players all signed a petition, saying they would gladly take jobs on campus in order to help pay their expenses. The school ignored the petition, so McEachron then offered his resignation. The school ignored that, too. “This job is enough to kill a man’s ambition,” McEachron told the Northern Nevada media in 1957. “My hands are tied.” The Pack then went 3-3 in 1958 but the school had to cancel three games because the roster dwindled to about two dozen or so players. McEachron then resigned for good in January 1959. “I cannot conceive how Nevada can be content, so lackadaisical, as to let the football program get in the shape it has,” he said.

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Wilson shouldn’t have much problem winning 5-7 games this year. He, of course, will have problems. But we’re not ready to lower the Pack expectations to 1955-58 levels just yet. Where will the victories come from? Idaho at home on Sept. 9 and Texas State on the road on Sept. 23 should be the first two. How about UNLV, New Mexico and Hawaii at home on Oct. 14, Oct. 28 and Nov. 4? That’s five wins. The bonus wins might come at Utah State (Nov. 11) and Colorado State (Nov. 18) as well as at home against Wyoming (Nov. 25). But that might be assuming too much about Wilson and his staff. The Pack does not have to play San Jose State, Boise State and Air Force this year. Seven of the dozen opponents this year had losing records last year and just two (USC at 11-3 and Fresno State at 10-4) won more than seven games. Even a school with no scholarships should somehow squeeze five wins out of that schedule.

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The Oakland Athletics seem serious about moving to Las Vegas. The A’s are now even scouting out alternate stadium sites in Las Vegas to go along with the 49-acre site near the Strip they’ve already agreed to purchase. The A’s new stadium in Las Vegas will supposedly seat no more than 35,000 people. There are more than 35,000 retired showgirls and blackjack dealers walking around the strip at any one time, so that figure shouldn’t be difficult to reach. The city of Las Vegas, though, shouldn’t be counting its pro sports franchises before they hatch. When, after all, has anything the A’s tried to do actually happened? The A’s best bet of actually moving to Las Vegas might be to sell the team to a Las Vegas billionaire or two.

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There used to be a lot of doubt that Las Vegas could actually support a professional sports franchise — you know, one where the athletes don’t wear shorts and no shirts and punch each other in the face. But those days are over since the NHL’s Vegas Golden Knights and NFL’s Las Vegas Raiders have made southern Nevada home. The Knights are one of the most successful 6-year-old franchises in sports history. They went to the Stanley Cup Finals their first year and the Western Conference Finals in two of the next four years. This year, they are currently in the conference semifinals. The Knights have made the playoffs five times in their first six years and have never had a losing record. The most important statistic, though, is their attendance. In the five years that fans were allowed in the building the Knights have sold more tickets than their capacity. Their 103 percent attendance this year led the NHL. There are more rats, stray cats and broken seats in Oakland now than fans.

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The Golden State Warriors championship era is about to come to an end. The Warriors are currently down 3-1 to the Los Angeles Lakers in the Western Conference semifinals. There’s always a chance if Steph Curry is on your team, but this time the Warriors seem overmatched. Curry needs help. The Lakers went out and got help for LeBron James and Anthony Davis when they traded for D’Angelo Russell back in early February (and got rid of Russell Westbrook). The Warriors didn’t even try to improve back in February. The result is that Warriors coach Steve Kerr is now just one loss away from losing to a Western Conference team in the playoffs for the first time in his coaching career.

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The Lakers started the year 0-5 and 2-10 and were still a disturbing 13-20 on Christmas Day and 25-31 on Feb. 9. And now they might just win the NBA championship. They will have to beat either Denver or Phoenix to win the West after they dispose of the Warriors. Two months ago, that seemed like an impossible task. It still seems a bit daunting. But now it looks like LeBron James at the age of 38 just might be on his way to his 11th NBA Finals, one short of the record (Bill Russell with 12). Russell, though, had a lot of help getting to his dozen NBA Finals. It’s why he won 11 of them. It also helped that the NBA had less than 10 teams for much of Russell’s career. If LeBron wins the title this year it might be time to take Larry O’Brien’s name off the championship trophy.

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How important is a head coach in the NBA? It doesn’t seem like it is important at all. Lakers coach Darvin Ham back in February, after all, looked like he would likely be the next Laker coach fired by LeBron. Now he could be the first rookie coach to win an NBA title since Nick Nurse of Toronto in 2019. Rookie coaches in the modern NBA, where the players run the show, seem to win NBA titles quite often. Kerr did it in 2015 and Ty Lue did it in 2016. Before that you had to go back to 1980 (Paul Westhead) and Pat Riley (1982). Lue did it with LeBron in Cleveland. A rookie coach might be the best coach for LeBron. A rookie head coach, after all, won’t have any goofy thoughts that might suggest he knows what’s best for the team more than LeBron.